Argentina has decided to place the Falkland Islands at the center of its foreign policy and international agenda thanks to the push given this week by Donald Trump. Just three days after the President of the United States said he was open to reconsidering his country’s neutral position regarding British sovereignty over the archipelago in the South Atlantic, the Argentine head of state delivered a speech to the nation to reactivate its historic claim over the Falklands and to warn that it will not tolerate the United Kingdom continuing with its plans to exploit the underwater oil of the archipelago.
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Milei, who appeared on television accompanied by his full cabinet to reinforce the solemnity of the occasion, was clear during the twenty minutes of his speech and justified his announcement by “the winds of change in the world favorable to our claims” and the “new geopolitical relevance of our country.”
The trigger for this new Argentine campaign has been the Sea Lion project and others like it being launched in the waters of the Falklands, which he defined as “an urgent danger” that breaks with the calls the UN has made in the last fifty years for Buenos Aires and London to avoid unilateral initiatives in that territory.
“If we do not act firmly today, they will have the capacity to appropriate the hydrocarbon reserves under our sea,” said the Argentine far-right leader. “And we will not allow it,” he proclaimed. To prevent this, the president announced a series of diplomatic, economic, and judicial measures summarized in the imposition of sanctions on companies and international actors involved in projects to extract hydrocarbons from the Falklands.
Milei went as far as to say he will force a choice between doing business with Argentina or with the companies operating in the Falklands. And that he will issue a decree to toughen penalties on oil companies operating in the sea near the Falklands. “The islands are ours and they were taken from us,” the president summarized in a speech aimed at a domestic audience, with constant references to Argentina’s new power in the world as a decisive nation.
Javier Milei also promised the establishment of a naval base in Tierra del Fuego and the creation of a National Security Council. “Protecting the South Atlantic is also a matter of national security,” he concluded, before hinting that Antarctica will be a key playing field in a world with artificial intelligence and that this increases the strategic importance of the Falklands.
The occupant of the Casa Rosada had already reacted earlier to Trump’s statements, which he described as “something very strong” and took the opportunity to recall that the Falklands cause is “the most important and sacred cause we Argentines have.”
The first major diplomatic step took place this Thursday itself, when Milei agreed with his Chilean counterpart, José Antonio Kast, on Chile’s support for the Falklands cause in exchange for recognizing that sovereignty over “the entirety” of the Strait of Magellan belongs to Chile. Kast and Milei met in Santiago de Chile, where they coincided in their participation in the Latin American far-right regional forum.
For many Argentine citizens, the Falklands issue is also an open wound, after the humiliating military defeat suffered in 1982 against Great Britain led by Margaret Thatcher. In that war, which accelerated the fall of the military dictatorship that ruled the country (1976-83), 649 Argentines and 255 British died in a technologically unequal duel against what was then the third-largest army in the world.
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Diplomacy
Milei visited Kast this Thursday and secured Chile’s support for the Falklands cause in exchange for renouncing any claim over sovereignty of the Strait of Magellan
The Falklands, called Falkland by the United Kingdom, are a group of two main islands and dozens of smaller ones located about 450 kilometers from the Argentine coast and geographically are an underwater extension of the Patagonian basin. After belonging to the Spanish colony as a Patagonian possession until 1811, they were occupied in 1833 by the United Kingdom.
Just two days ago, on September 1, Argentina began shaping its new offensive for the islands, which have barely a population of 4,000 people mostly of British origin, with the filing of a lawsuit against the Sea Lion oil project, an initiative by the British company Rockhopper to establish and exploit together with the Israeli Navitas the first offshore field in waters around the Falklands.
If successful, Sea Lion, a drilling at 450 meters depth and about 220 kilometers north of the Falklands, will be the first oil operation in the area sixteen years after the discovery of crude by Rockhopper. The project involves an investment of nearly 4 billion dollars and plans to be able to market oil in 2028. The logistics also involve opening a maritime route between Punta Arenas (Chile) and Puerto Argentino (Stanley for the British, on East Falkland Island).
Measures
Buenos Aires has already filed a lawsuit against the Sea Lion project, which plans to market oil from the Falklands during 2028
Washington analysts have interpreted Trump’s statements in the Oval Office as a warning to the United Kingdom to increase its defense spending. This Thursday, before Milei spoke, Donald Trump again speculated on the topic during an interview with the GBNews television channel in which he highlighted how London recovered the Falklands “quite firmly, but that is now very far away. It’s a very long journey.” In the interview, Trump linked his possible review of the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands to the UK’s attitude of not helping him in the Strait of Hormuz
Republican Ronald Reagan was President of the United States when Argentina tried to conquer the archipelago in 1982, and although he initially tried to mediate between London and Buenos Aires, the special relationship between the US and the UK ultimately prevailed. Since then Washington has remained neutral on the issue of sovereignty of the islands, despite de facto recognizing British administration of the territory, and has advocated for a negotiated solution.
Before the president’s televised appearance, Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno had already clarified that, in any case, the Falklands issue must have “a diplomatic solution.” Argentina will seek support “from countries in different forums,” according to Quirno, foreign minister of an administration that scorns multilateralism and the role of the UN in the world and now demands, as Milei said, that its new allies align with them on this issue.
The last time the Falklands issue occupied space in international media was during this summer’s World Cup, when some Argentine players displayed a banner, after defeating England in the semifinals, stating that the Falklands belong to Argentina.
The diplomatic agenda on the Falklands was activated in Argentina last April, when an internal Pentagon report was leaked in which, for the first time, the possibility of reviewing Washington’s alignment in this conflict was opened. These were times when the United States was trying to gather support for its campaign against Iran. But the rapport shown by Trump and King Charles III at the White House in late April dampened Argentine expectations.
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