Argentina's Milei escalates Falklands dispute, seizing on Trump comments and oil tensions
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentine President Javier Milei escalated his country’s long-running dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands on Thursday, praising U.S. President Donald Trump for saying Washington could reconsider its historically neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty and vowing new measures to halt an offshore oil project near the British-controlled archipelago.
In a nationally televised address, Milei seized on Trump’s comments this week that Washington could review its position on the islands, casting the potential shift as proof that his close relationship with the U.S. president — often criticized 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 220 kilometers (140 miles) north of the islands, where British 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.
He threatened tougher sanctions against companies involved in the offshore drilling and announced new funding for a naval base in Argentina’s southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego to bolster the country’s military presence near the islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas.
“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 Britain and professing admiration for Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister who led the country to retake the remote archipelago during the 1982 Falklands War. 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. “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 colonizer, Spain, and that Britain has illegally occupied them since 1833. Britain rejects that claim, citing the islanders’ desire to remain a British overseas territory.
For decades, successive U.S. administrations have remained neutral on the competing Argentine and British sovereignty claims over the Falklands while recognizing Britain’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 fueled frenzied speculation in Britain 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 British broadcaster GB News, Trump avoided directly answering a question about whether the U.S. would “come to the aid” of Britain in another conflict over the Falklands. Instead, he repeated past complaints that Britain had not provided sufficient support for the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Iran.
“Your country was not there to help me,” Trump said, recalling Britain’s former prime minister, Keir Starmer, telling 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 Washington reconsidering its position on the islands as one possible way to punish NATO allies that declined to join the U.S. war on Iran.
In response, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s spokesman, Tom Wells, said the British government’s position was “long-standing and unwavering.”
“Sovereignty rests with the U.K., 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 favor of remaining a British overseas territory.
Under pressure from the populist opposition, which accuses him of neglecting Argentina’s sovereignty claim, Milei has grown more vocal on the Falklands in recent months as plans for large-scale oil production around the islands raise the economic stakes of the diplomatic dispute.
Describing the Sea Lion oil project as the most pressing of several resource developments advancing around the islands, Milei warned that once drilling begins, Britain would gain not only a new source of revenue but also a stronger incentive to entrench its presence on the Falklands.
“If we allow it, we will be creating an incentive for the British government to deepen the occupation of the islands and the exploitation of our resources,” Milei said, vowing to sign a decree that would fast-track sanctions against companies involved in oil projects around the islands. The measure would also extend the penalties to shareholders, directors and suppliers, effectively barring firms with direct or indirect ties to such projects from doing business in Argentina.
Even as his administration presses ahead with sweeping austerity measures elsewhere, Milei also announced more defense spending for a new naval base in Tierra del Fuego, which he said would expand Argentina’s military footprint in the South Atlantic and boost its access to Antarctica. He described the project as part of a broader push to give Argentina the economic and military weight to press its claim over the islands.
“A poor country without armed forces can hardly make effective progress on its sovereignty claims,” he said. "There is no other way.”
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Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Zeke Miller in Washington and Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.
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