Perhaps like never before, Javier Milei failed to close a speech with his trite war cry: he kept the “long live freedom, damn it” and replaced it with “long live the country.” It was not the only thing he omitted: the usual insults for those who criticize him were not heard either. The changes reflected what he sought this Thursday with a message to citizens transmitted simultaneously and in a chain by the media. “The Malvinas Islands are Argentine by history and by right, there is no discussion about it,” said the president, prompted by Donald Trump's recent statements, which suggested that the United States could withdraw its support for the United Kingdom in the dispute over the southern archipelago. Milei announced that it will apply sanctions against companies that participate in the imminent oil exploitation in the Malvinas and reiterated that Argentina will build a naval base in Tierra del Fuego, in the extreme south of the South American country.
“It is not enough to support our claim,” said Milei, “the Argentine State has the obligation to use all the diplomatic, economic, judicial and legal tools available to defend our sovereignty and our resources.”
In a message recorded hours before its broadcast and shown in the Casa Rosada, accompanied by all his ministers, the ultra president recalled that, for 50 years, the United Nations has urged Argentina and the United Kingdom not to carry out unilateral actions in the Malvinas while the controversy over sovereignty is being resolved. However, he pointed out, the United Kingdom has failed to comply with that call and, in particular, targeted the offshore oil exploitation being prepared, in the north of the islands, by the companies Navitas, of Israeli origin, and Rockhopper, British. “The Sea Lion project involves something especially serious that has never happened before: the extraction of a non-renewable resource that belongs to Argentines,” Milei said. “If we do not act, in a few months they will have the material capacity to appropriate the oil reserves that lie under our sea.”
Specifically, Milei announced the signing of a decree to expedite and coordinate the application of sanctions – already provided for by law – for companies that participate in the extraction of resources without authorization from Argentina. He explained that it will include the shareholders and suppliers of those companies. He also announced that he will toughen sanctions and that he will send a bill for the defense of national sovereignty, to, among other things, create a National Security Council.
The other highlight of his announcements consisted of the expansion of the resources of the Ministry of Defense to advance the construction of a naval base in Tierra del Fuego, with the purpose of locating the country as “a central logistics pole of the South Atlantic” and strengthening its geopolitical projection in the strategic region of Antarctica. The construction of the base had already been resolved under the previous government and, shortly after taking office, Milei reported that it would be developed jointly with the United States.
The alignment of his Government with Trump was an axis of the speech that, according to the Executive, Milei prepared with the Foreign Ministry and the Intelligence Secretariat. The president said that, while the United Kingdom is going through “multiple crises of a migration, demographic and economic nature” and is traveling “a path of decline,” “winds of change favorable” to the Argentine claim are blowing in the world. “Trump declared that the United States is reevaluating its historical position in relation to the Malvinas,” he continued. "The United States is evaluating this change in position because it knows that in Argentina it has a reliable partner, aligned with Western values, in a position of strategic relevance, which can be a valuable ally in the decades to come."
Without making any specific commitment, Donald Trump has suggested that he could review the US position on the Falklands conflict, as a retaliation to the United Kingdom for its reluctance to increase military spending in NATO. This Thursday, the Republican spoke about the issue again. In an interview with the British network GB News, he criticized London for withdrawing support for the United States in the war with Iran and recalled the war conflict of 1982, when the military dictatorship of Argentina tried to recover the islands by force: "It was a long time ago and I watched it very closely. You [the United Kingdom] behaved very well. You recovered them quite firmly." Then he added that “that was very far away, it is a long trip, a long way,” with an expression that could have referred to the time that had passed since then or to the distance between the archipelago and London.
The issue of the islands gained prominence for Milei in recent weeks, after, during the World Cup, the players of the Albiceleste team showed a flag with the legend “the Malvinas are Argentine” and revitalized a deeply rooted popular sentiment. It had previously been a problematic issue for the president, who has acknowledged his admiration for Margaret Thatcher – the British prime minister during the 1982 war – and until recently planned to travel to London this year.
In this Thursday's speech, the ultra president avoided the insults and personal attacks that he usually gives to his adversaries and journalists. He sought, instead, to show himself capable of articulating a call for national unity. “We can argue about anything else, we can discuss my ways [...], but this issue demands that we put our weapons aside and show a united front before the world,” he said, and asked “the entire political, economic and social leadership [...] to join with one voice in this demand.”
Hours before, at the beginning of the same day, Milei had been in Chile. There, before meeting with his counterpart José Antonio Kast, he praised the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, attacked the Government of Spain and the “filthy lefties.”
