In brief
- Argentine President Javier Milei has reignited a dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands.
- It comes after US President Donald Trump said the US would reconsider its neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty.
Argentine President Javier Milei escalated his country’s long-running dispute with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, praising US President Donald Trump for saying the US could reconsider its historically neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday night local time, Milei seized on Trump’s comments this week that the US could review its position on the islands, casting the potential shift as proof that his close relationship with the US president — often criticised by political opponents — was paying dividends.
“The United States is considering this change in position because it knows that Argentina has a reliable partner, aligned with Western values, in a strategically important position that can be a valuable ally in the decades to come,” Milei said.
The libertarian Argentine leader then announced a series of actions aimed at stopping the development of the Sea Lion oil project, about 220km north of the islands, where UK company Rockhopper Exploration and Israel’s Navitas Petroleum plan to begin drilling in the coming months and start producing oil in 2028.
Argentina considers the project an illegal exploitation of resources in waters it claims as its own.
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He threatened tougher sanctions against companies involved in offshore drilling and announced new funding for a naval base in Argentina’s southernmost province, Tierra del Fuego, to bolster the country’s military presence near the islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas.
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“Argentina will not stand idly by,” Milei said. “Any further advance on the Malvinas Islands will be considered a violation of our national security.”
Milei’s effort to refocus national attention on the Falklands marks a striking turn for a leader who has faced criticism at home for warming ties with the UK and professing admiration for Margaret Thatcher, the UK prime minister who led the country to retake the remote archipelago during the 1982 Falklands War after Argentina had invaded it.
The two-month conflict killed 649 Argentine troops, 255 British service members and three islanders.
The sovereignty claim remains one of the few causes that cuts across Argentina’s stark political divides, giving Milei a welcome political opening as his approval ratings slip and the economy sputters.
“We can argue about my style. We can disagree over fiscal or exchange-rate policy,” Milei said.
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“But this issue demands that we lay down our arms and show a united front to the world as a nation and as a society. There are causes that rise above any political difference. The Malvinas is one of them.”
Argentina maintains that it inherited sovereignty over the islands from its former coloniser, Spain, and that the UK has illegally occupied them since 1833. The UK rejects that claim, citing the islanders’ desire to remain a British overseas territory.
Trump questions US support for British sovereignty
For decades, successive US administrations have remained neutral on the competing Argentine and UK sovereignty claims over the Falklands while recognising the UK’s de facto administration of the islands. Any departure from that position would be a major diplomatic affront and inflame already high trans-Atlantic tensions.
On Monday, Trump fuelled frenzied speculation in the UK when asked whether his administration was reviewing its stance on the decades-old dispute.
“I always review every position,” he replied. “That’s just one of many.”
Then, in an interview aired on Thursday with UK broadcaster GB News, Trump avoided directly answering a question about whether the US would “come to the aid” of the UK in another conflict over the Falklands.
The Falkland Islands have been under UK control for nearly 200 years. Credit: Supplied
Instead, he repeated past complaints that Britain had not provided sufficient support for the US-led bombing campaign against Iran.
“Your country was not there to help me,” Trump said, recalling that the UK’s former prime minister, Keir Starmer, told him the country did not have ships to contribute to the campaign.
“It was pretty sad, the whole thing.”
The Trump administration has floated the Falklands as leverage before: An internal Pentagon email leaked in April first raised the prospect of the US reconsidering its position on the islands as one possible way to punish NATO allies that declined to join the US war on Iran.
In response, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s spokesman, Tom Wells, said the British government’s position was “long-standing and unwavering”.
“Sovereignty rests with the UK, and the islanders’ right to self-determination is paramount,” Wells said earlier this week, pointing to a 2013 referendum in which the roughly 4,000 people living in the Falkland Islands voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a British overseas territory.
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