We are going to deploy all the tools of the State, diplomatic, economic, judicial and legal, to deter state and non-state actors who violate our sovereignty. This is how forceful the Argentine president, Javier Milei, was this Thursday during a speech to the nation focused on the conflict that Argentina has with the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands.
The Argentine president has recognized in an appearance announced days ago that the Malvinas "are Argentine by history and by right." During the 15 minutes that the intervention lasted, Milei reviewed the history of the conflict, criticized what he considers "the decline" of the United Kingdom, thanked Donald Trump for his support and announced several measures to "recover sovereignty."
Of all the announcements made, the most striking is the one related to the military. "Today we will sign a decree of necessity and urgency to expand the resources of the Ministry of Defense with the priority purpose of building an integrated naval base in Tierra del Fuego and increasing our telecommunications capabilities," Milei said about a project that, despite sounding novel, the truth is that it had already been announced by the previous Argentine Government and taken up by Milei in April 2024. However, it was never put into operation.
Currently in Ushuaia there is already a naval base, so this project would be an application of it to have greater operating capacity in the area. The current Argentine Executive has recognized that this fact is not only related to the conflict with the Malvinas, but also with the importance of having a better position in the South Atlantic and Antarctica, a place where, according to Milei, "large nations will compete for the resources necessary to fuel the growth that the era of artificial intelligence will bring."
Furthermore, another of the poles of Milei's announcement has been in the sanctions. The Argentine president will urgently send Congress a bill for the defense of national sovereignty that will have three objectives: modify law 26659 to toughen sanctions and penalties against companies linked to unauthorized operations, create the National Security Council and ask Congress to grant the Council the necessary powers so that the State can respond with economic and diplomatic tools against state or non-state actors that threaten national security.
This sanctions measure comes a few days after an oil project led by the Israeli company Navitas and its British partner Rockhopper to extract oil from the region was announced.
This statement by Milei occurs a few days after statements by US President Donald Trump, one of Milei's main international supporters, caused a real earthquake in Argentina. As everything that has to do with the sovereignty of the Malvinas is taken with a magnifying glass in the Latin American country, the confirmation that Washington is considering changing its position in this conflict and defending the Argentine sovereignty of the archipelago to punish the United Kingdom was received by the Argentine Government as a historical milestone.
"I always review all positions, that is just one among many," the US president had said at the White House. One more act of pressure by the US on NATO countries that have not responded to the support that Trump expected from them, as the US Government has stated on several occasions.
Milei acknowledged a day after Trump's words that those statements were "something very strong regarding the most important and sacred cause that Argentines have." Furthermore, the Argentine leader had stated a few weeks before that "the key" to recovering the islands was the United States and that they were making progress in diplomacy, although without specifying with which international actor these contacts were taking place.
In this Thursday's statement, he thanked Trump for his position and stated that this change has occurred because "they know that in Argentina they have a reliable partner, aligned with Western values, in a position of strategic relevance, who can be a valuable ally in the decades to come. Without it, none of this would be possible." According to Milei, Trump would prefer that the Malvinas were controlled by a country like Argentina rather than by the United Kingdom, which the Argentine president has described as "decadent": "We are a country that is not affected by uncontrolled immigration, the violence that it entails, and the national security problems that today haunt Europe. If we evaluate the structural conditions of the United Kingdom, on the other hand, they are facing multiple crises of a migratory, demographic and economic nature, which are difficult to find a solution. It is clear that they are going through a path of decline, however, Argentina's future is flourishing and will prevail.
Furthermore, on a national level, this announcement has occurred in the midst of a particularly sensitive moment with the Malvinas issue. What happened in the World Cup semi-final in which Argentina eliminated England and during which several players showed a flag that read 'The Malvinas are Argentine' led to an explosion of nationalist jubilation throughout the country. An act for which the Argentine Football Association (AFA) has recently been sanctioned but which has already become part of the Argentine collective imagination.
A moment in which the only public representative who did not clearly support the act was President Milei himself, who defended that the players had "acted recklessly" and that they were not "part of the country's diplomacy." "You should not mix water and oil," the president even said, which was strongly criticized by sectors of all political sides. Shortly afterward he clarified that logically he was in favor of "recovering the Malvinas", but that the claim should be resolved through diplomatic channels exclusively and that he was already making progress in this regard.
In this Thursday's statement he asked political groups to support him in his announcements for a cause that is transversal to society: "We can argue about anything else, we can discuss my ways, we can disagree about fiscal or exchange policy, but this issue demands a pause, it demands that we put our weapons aside and show a united front before the world, as a nation, and as a society. Because there are causes that are above any political difference. Malvinas is one of them."
The story behind the sovereignty of the Malvinas
The conflict over the Malvinas Islands goes back centuries. For a long time this place was without population and it was since Magellan's expedition saw it in the 16th century when a history of occupation began in different periods by the French, English and Spanish. The Spanish empire established a fixed government in them that granted it property that would pass into the hands of Argentina through the so-called regime of territorial continuity by which the Spanish territory passed into the hands of the nation that emerged after the independence that occurred on the American continent.
At that time, the Argentine Republic established a command with the objective of preventing piracy and whaling and seal hunting. However, the strategic importance of that territory, located on the way to the Strait of Magellan, where all the ships that wanted to cross between oceans passed. In the 17th century, Argentina captured two North American ships that were fishing in the area, which caused a diplomatic crisis that led to a conflict with the United States, which decided to propose that the United Kingdom help it and in exchange would be willing to recognize British sovereignty over the archipelago. Something that finally happened in 1833, when English forces took control of the Malvinas, arguing for rights over these lands where they had long ago had a port.
The islands have been de facto controlled by the United Kingdom since then, despite Argentina's many attempts to recover them. In the midst of the decolonization processes in the 1960s, the UN approved resolution 2065 that forced the United Kingdom and Argentina to negotiate the sovereignty of the islands.
