Argentine President Javier Milei is escalating his country’s dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Argentine President Javier Milei escalated his country’s dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands on Thursday, vowing new measures to halt an oil project near the British-controlled archipelago and praising U.S. President Donald Trump for saying Washington could reconsider its neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty. Milei cast Trump’s comments as proof that his close relationship with the U.S. president — criticized by political opponents as overly deferential — was paying dividends.
The Argentine leader then announced sweeping actions aimed at stopping the development of the deep-sea 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 pumping 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.
The two-month conflict, which killed 649 Argentine troops, 255 British service members and three islanders, remains a sore point in Argentina over four decades later. The sovereignty claim is enshrined in Argentina’s constitution and frequently invoked as an expression of national identity, from banknotes to World Cup soccer chants. It is also one of the few causes that cuts across the country’s stark political divides, giving Milei, who is up for reelection next year, a welcome political opening as his approval ratings slip and the economy sputters.
We can disagree over fiscal or exchange-rate policy,” Milei said. The Malvinas is one of them.” “He wants to use the legitimate sovereignty claim over the Malvinas Islands to regain ground ahead of the election year and serve U.S. interests in its dispute with Britain,” said Nicolás del Caño, a leftist opposition lawmaker. 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 claims 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 stirred concern in Britain when asked whether his administration was reviewing its stance on the decades-old dispute. Instead, he repeated past complaints that Britain had not provided sufficient support for the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Iran. His comments forced Downing Street to insist that Britain would not yield sovereignty over the Falklands.
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