U.S. & Paraguay Sign Civil Nuclear Cooperation Pact, Deepening Ties as Washington Courts Rare Taiwan Ally

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Paraguayan Vice President Pedro Alliana signed a Strategic Civil Nuclear Cooperation memorandum of understanding at the State Department on Tuesday, formalizing a new phase of energy cooperation between Washington and Asunción and extending a U.S. diplomatic push that has touched much of Latin America this year.

MOU

The two officials met privately at the State Department before an open signing ceremony at 9:30 a.m. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Allison Hooker also took part; Landau held a separate meeting with Alliana later the same morning.

One account of the ceremony noted Rubio switched to Spanish partway through his remarks. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) builds on groundwork Paraguay laid earlier this year: in April, the country’s state electricity utility, ANDE, signed a non-binding cooperation agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency to study Small Modular Reactor (SMR) technology as a potential piece of Paraguay’s National Energy Policy 2050, a long-term plan to diversify the country's energy mix beyond its current heavy reliance on hydroelectric power.

Part of a Broader Strategic Alliance

Tuesday’s signing extends a strategy the State Department has pursued with several countries this year, including similar civil nuclear cooperation memoranda with El Salvador and, in Central Europe, Hungary — where Rubio also pushed the country toward U.S. small modular reactor technology specifically.

Multiple accounts of the Paraguay agreement frame it explicitly as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to deepen alliances across Latin America while limiting the regional influence of China and Russia, rather than a stand-alone energy initiative.

That framing carries particular weight with Paraguay specifically. It is one of the last remaining countries in Latin America — and one of very few worldwide — to maintain full diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than the People’s Republic of China, a position it has held even as neighboring countries have shifted recognition to Beijing in exchange for trade and investment.

A deepening U.S. nuclear energy partnership gives Washington a concrete economic incentive to help Paraguay sustain that position, beyond diplomatic solidarity alone.

Connected to a Wider Diplomatic Push This Week

The MOU follows a call Rubio held Monday with Paraguayan President Santiago Peña, in which Rubio specifically thanked Peña for his support of Venezuela’s “reconstruction and democratic transition,” according to a State Department readout, and the two discussed expanding security and economic cooperation more broadly.

Taken together, the call and the nuclear signing point to an active, multi-track effort by Washington to consolidate its relationship with Asunción across energy, security, and Venezuela policy simultaneously.

An Odd Juxtaposition With Brasília

The timing lands in an unusual spot regionally: this is the same week Paraguay’s Congress formally repudiated Brazilian President Lula da Silva over remarks he made citing the 1864-1870 War of the Triple Alliance to justify Brazilian defense spending — a dispute serious enough that Paraguay’s legislature moved to legally protect a historic war relic and advanced a bill declaring an annual day of commemoration for what it calls the “Genocide of the Río de la Plata.”

That Paraguay is simultaneously sparring diplomatically with its regional neighbor Brazil while deepening a strategic partnership with Washington underscores how differently Asunción is positioning itself toward each relationship at the same moment.

What Civil Nuclear Cooperation Actually Covers

Agreements of this type typically extend well beyond electricity generation. The State Department’s own past framing of similar memoranda, including the one signed with El Salvador, describes them as opening the door to nuclear applications in medicine, agriculture, water resource management, and safe waste handling, alongside building recipient countries’ research, innovation, and development capacity.

Paraguay’s April agreement with the IAEA specifically outlined technical assistance for national energy planning, information exchange on regulatory best practices, and training programs for ANDE’s technical staff — suggesting Tuesday’s MOU with the U.S. likely builds toward similar capacity-building objectives, formalized now at the bilateral government level rather than through the IAEA alone.

Future

Neither government detailed a specific implementation timeline or investment figures tied to Tuesday’s signing. Given the pattern of Rubio’s other 2026 nuclear cooperation agreements, the next concrete steps will likely involve technical assessments of Paraguay’s energy grid and potential SMR siting studies, rather than immediate construction or operational commitments.

For Washington, the agreement adds Paraguay to a growing list of Latin American governments — alongside Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Bolivia’s recent counter-narcotics realignment — deepening formal cooperation with the U.S. across multiple sectors simultaneously, part of a broader hemispheric pattern that has defined much of the region’s diplomacy this year.