BUENOS AIRES – Argentina’s President Javier Milei specialises in theatre and throwing verbal bombs. That’s how he came from nowhere to win power in 2023 from the Peronist movement that had controlled this country for decades. Memorably, he wielded a chainsaw on the campaign trail to show his zeal for change, shouting : “Libertad, Carajo!…Long live Freedom, damn it!”
No wonder Donald Trump is a fan who has just given his buddy Milei the gift of suggesting the United States is rethinking its long-standing neutrality on the Falklands Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the south Atlantic. The US President also suggested on Thursday that he might not come to Britain’s aid in a potential territorial dispute over the Falklands. Even allowing for Trump’s predilection for shooting his mouth off, his intent was plain to see: to punish Britain for not giving him the help he sought in his disastrous Iran war, and to make the new UK government step up defence spending.
Milei used a televised address to the nation overnight to declare that the “winds of change” favourable to Argentina‘s claim to the islands were “blowing around the world”.
He said: “Recently, President Trump declared that the US is re-evaluating its historic position in relation to the Malvinas,” using the Argentinian name for the Falklands. He added that Britain was facing “multiple crises of a migratory, demographic and economic nature that are unlikely to be resolved. It is clear that they are on a path of decline. Argentina’s future, however, is flourishing and will prevail.”
He claimed that Trump’s re-evaluation over the islands was “not innocuous”. “The US is considering this change of 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 added.
President Donald Trump greets Argentina’s President Javier Milei at the White House in October 2025 (Photo: Alex Brandon/ AP)The islands – whose residents voted by 99.8 per cent in 2013 to remain British – are “under British occupation”, he claimed, announcing plans to sanction oil companies working off the islands.
Milei’s address to his nation here showed a leader emboldened by the notional support of Trump’s America to reassert Argentina’s claim to the islands. The man admires Winston Churchill, we are told hereabouts, and there was some of that in this speech. “The islands are ours, they were taken from us, and they are indispensable for us in the coming decades,” Milei declared. “There can be no argument here. They are part of the Argentine territory….we will fight tooth and nail to defend our interests.”
So what lies behind this latest chapter of verbal conflict over islands at the end of the world, almost 8,000 miles from London? And how dangerous is this to a new UK government with problems aplenty elsewhere? I have reported this standoff ever since being here during the war over the islands in 1982. I later had the rare journalistic experience of hearing the then-president of Argentina, one Carlos Menem, end the “state of war” to me and my TV camera, back in 1989, news that was celebrated in Washington DC, Moscow, Beijing, not to mention London.
The voice I’m hearing most this week, and it speaks loudly, is from an adviser to Milei who said bluntly to me and others: “Britain is yesterday, Argentina is tomorrow.” The adviser insisted this reflected what they were hearing from Trump’s Washington DC
Clearly, Trump sees a transactional window, however short-sighted, in Latin America, and from day one of this second term he has made it clear that he believes the region belongs to him and his diktat, from Greenland to the south Atlantic, in stark contrast to the multiple presidencies I reported from Washington, when the hemisphere so often looked like an afterthought.
Look at what he did in Venezuela, taking out one leader and installing another who is doing his bidding on the country’s oil. Look at how he threatens Cuba, and its desperate, old-style, left-wing leadership. He even rewrites the rules on respect for sovereignty, namely to stay out of the elections of others, supporting the right-wing candidate in Brazil’s election next month.
The Falklands Conflict, April – June 1982, Commandos from 40 Commando Anti-Tank Troop march towards Port Stanley (Photo: Pete Holdgate/ Crown Copyright. Imperial War Museums via Getty Images)“Trump changes his mind, as we know, almost by the day,” says José Octavio Bordón, veteran Argentine politician, once a candidate for the presidency. “And Milei is now back in campaign mode. Addressing the nation this way, it’s a power play, but without anything concrete to show, it can end up looking confused.”
Truth be told, Milei knows that there is no way Argentina can think militarily about the Falklands. The 40-odd years that separate us from the war of 1982 have seen the Argentine armed forces degraded in terms of resources, manpower and technology. Any process over the future of the islands lies clearly in the political arena.
“Sometimes it’s all about luck in politics,” to quote that insider at the Presidential palace.” Our President just got lucky, because of Trump’s very welcome present to him.”
Certainly Milei needs a rallying cry, just a year ahead of elections and polls that show his agenda for change only just ahead of the Peronist machine. And that lies behind his seizure of the Malvinas issue overnight with his address to the nation. Pollsters warn that such thinking may be short-sighted. “People care much more about the cost of living, rising prices, insecurity, health care, than the Malvinas,” says pollster Martha Reale. But that may be a secondary consideration.
What’s so telling is that we learn that Trump’s Pentagon sees the south Atlantic as “a geostrategic maritime corridor,” to quote one US diplomat this week, connecting the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. “How big a factor is that for this latest back and forth over the Falklands?” I asked, mentioning the issues Trump has with waterways in the Middle East, remember that Strait of Hormuz, even the Panama Canal, and yes, his evident distrust of the Brits. “Work it out for yourself,” I was told with a chuckle. “A new America from Greenland to Tierra del Fuego.”
And, lest we forget, there is everything from oil, to fish, to minerals, in those waters down south, always a Trump obsession. Milei’s address promised sanctions against a corporate alliance promising to produce oil out the south Atlantic by 2028. Britain’s Rockhopper Exploration and Israel’s Navitas Petroleum are working together on a project titled Sea Lion, now threatened by Milei outlawing Argentine companies helping them. You wonder how long before we hear of Trump buddies who want control of any such mining for wealth.
From the perspective of someone who once heard an Argentine President declare an end to war, and someone who then worked at the UN on how to foster dialogue between the two countries, there has to be a fear in Trump’s meddling with the Falklands issue. Firstly, that the most powerful man in the world is using another leader’s current vulnerability to pursue his own vendettas and interests, cynical to the last.
Then, to my ear, this Argentine President has probably closed the window on a conversation between London and Buenos Aires for the foreseeable future with the verbal bomb-throwing. We return, sadly, to a dialogue of the deaf. More’s the pity, because even on the football pitch….Argentina and England, well we have a mutual respect, us for Leo Messi, they for Bobby Charlton. No, seriously.
Because (surprise, surprise) the last thing most Argentines are is anti-Anglo in my experience. Far from it. And in time, as the late President Menem once told me, there surely could be a way to put two flags on those islands at the end of the world, explore peacefully what might be, and seek the co-operative tomorrow, yes mañana, which a Trump could never do.
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