‘Winds of change’: How Milei is stirring Falklands claim amid Trump-UK spat

Argentina’s President Javier Milei is capitalising on his country’s long-running claim to the Falkland Islands by coupling threats of sanctions over a major offshore oil project with lavish praise for Donald Trump , after the US president publicly questioned Washington’s position over the disputed UK territory.

Milei’s remarks come as relations between Trump and the UK government have deteriorated over the UK’s refusal to support US military action against Iran, and as the right-wing Milei increasingly positions Argentina as one of Washington’s closest ideological allies in Latin America.

The UK has administered the Falkland Islands, which Argentina calls Las Malvinas, since 1833. However, as the islands lie off its shores, Argentina claims sovereignty over them.

The US has traditionally supported the UK’s claim to the territory. But analysts say Trump’s willingness to question established US policy, even if mainly intended as leverage against London, could provide Milei with an opportunity to unite Argentinians around one of the country’s few enduring national causes.

The question of Argentina’s claim to the islands was raised again this week when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair, accused the UK of hypocrisy and wrote on X in Spanish: “The Falkland Islands belong to Argentina.”

The Falklands are a self-governing British overseas territory in the South Atlantic, almost 13,000km (8,000 miles) from the UK.

Argentina says it inherited sovereignty over the islands from Spain in the 19th century. But Britain has administered the Falklands since 1833 and points both to that long presence and to the wishes of the islanders living there to justify its control. In a 2013 referendum, 1,513 of 1,517 voters backed remaining a British overseas territory.

The dispute erupted into war in 1982 when Argentina seized the islands.