Excited by Donald Trump’s threat to “review” the historic position of the United States supporting Great Britain in the dispute it has with Argentina over the possession of the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, President Javier Milei will speak on the subject this Thursday night on national television.
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The exact content is kept under strict secrecy, but the president himself and his closest circle fueled the expectation by describing the matter as “the most important and sacred cause we Argentines have,” according to the Río Negro newspaper. “The communication maneuver seeks to create a political milestone that serves as a turning point for the administration and prepares the ground ahead of the election year,” the media outlet states.
According to presidential spokesperson Adrián Ravier, the speech content is being prepared by Milei himself, Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, and the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE), an agency that until now was dedicated to producing strategic intelligence and now, according to reports, also intervenes in the communication design of the speech and in monitoring its political impact. From the Casa Rosada, they assure that the president will record the message the same day, once he returns from Chile, where he will travel Thursday morning to participate in the Madrid Forum, Página/12 newspaper indicated.
But the media outlet El Canciller.com detailed that Milei would announce a bill to sanction companies that carry out activities without Argentina’s authorization in the Malvinas Islands and would target the Sea Lion oil project, promoted by the British Rockhopper Exploration and the Israeli Navitas Petroleum.
The announcement of the national broadcast became known hours after Quirno himself presented to the Cabinet the diplomatic advances of the Foreign Ministry regarding the sovereignty of the islands. But the immediate trigger was another: on Monday, in the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump told the press that he “always reviews all positions” and that the one related to the Malvinas “is just one among many,” when asked if Washington was reconsidering its historic position of neutrality.
Milei had already publicly celebrated the statements. “Yesterday something very strong happened regarding the most important and sacred cause we Argentines have,” he said this Tuesday before the ministers’ meeting. The President then anticipated that the matter would be analyzed by his team and placed it among the main topics on the Government’s international agenda.
In contrast, the United Kingdom reacted cautiously and reaffirmed its position. British Defense Secretary John Healey assured that London had not received any concrete suggestion from Washington about a policy change and again defended the continuity of British control over the islands.
In fact, Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno toned down the exaggerated enthusiasm that the digital militias of Milei’s government sought to install this Tuesday, pointed out the media outlet La Política Online. “We do not operate on what we do not control; we operate on what we control,” he said regarding a hypothetical U.S. support for the Argentine position.
“What Trump does for England will be Trump for England,” the foreign minister commented. “If we are direct or indirect beneficiaries of their decisions… there is no magic triangle here where we are talking in these terms,” he emphasized.
In any case, Quirno stated that “the Malvinas are at the center of every Argentine’s heart. It is an obligation and a responsibility for us to keep the claim over sovereignty alive.”
In an opinion column for the Todo Noticias (TN) network, political scientist Marcos Novaro referred to Milei and Quirno’s positions after Trump’s statements: “The president saw the opportunity to gain points in the nationalist mood that has lately prevailed in our public opinion. ‘We are clear that the solution is diplomatic so that the claim is heard,’ said the Foreign Minister, for his part.”
“Almost simultaneously with that euphoric stance of Milei, (Quirno) downplayed Trump’s statements and dedicated himself to deflating the springboard of the enthusiasts,” Novaro noted. He added: “Probably his prudence has to do with understanding, better than Milei, that the effects of this Trumpist offensive are quite uncertain and may even be counterproductive: if the British feel threatened, they will not be more open to Argentina’s claims, but rather the opposite; if they were to heed Trump and increase their defense spending, nothing guarantees they would not also put more planes, ships, and missiles in the Malvinas.”
For Página/12, meanwhile, Milei, with his national broadcast, “clings to the Malvinas to cover up the economic crisis.” “At the Casa Rosada, a sudden fervor for Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands has awakened, especially in Javier Milei. It coincided, curiously, with the warning Donald Trump made to the United Kingdom to change its neutral stance on the Malvinas issue. It did not matter that this maneuver by the American seeks the British government to increase its participation in NATO. Aware of this, Milei decided to give greater importance to this fact which, incidentally, helps him to put the local economic crisis in the background,” the media outlet stated.
