Since a month and a half ago, during the Football World Cup, the players of the albiceleste national team showed a flag with the legend “the Malvinas are Argentine,” the southern islands seem to refuse to leave the focus of public attention in the South American country. President Javier Milei said this Tuesday that the national claim of sovereignty over the archipelago is “the most important and sacred cause” of Argentines and highlighted as “very strong” the statement made on Monday by Donald Trump: the Republican admitted, without details or commitments, that he could modify the historical position of the United States regarding Argentina’s claim against the United Kingdom, occupant of the islands since 1833. The Executive announced that this Thursday Milei will give an official message about the situation.
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The Malvinas issue has been, until now, an uncomfortable topic for Milei. The far-right president has acknowledged his admiration for Margaret Thatcher – the British prime minister during the war with Argentina in 1982 – has defended the islanders’ right to self-determination – “we seek that they prefer to be Argentine,” he has said – and has always advocated for an approach to the United Kingdom. In fact, until the Malvinas’ appearance in the World Cup match between Argentina and England, the Casa Rosada was planning a Milei trip to London this year, the first visit of an Argentine head of state in this century.
Now, with the sovereignty claim revitalized in public opinion, the president hopes to benefit from his unconditional alignment with Trump, at a critical moment for his image and for expectations about his economic plan. The statements of the U.S. president fueled Milei’s hopes: “I always review all positions, that is just one among many,” Trump said. With those words, he responded to a journalistic query about rumors that the U.S. could modify its defense of the United Kingdom’s position on the Malvinas. According to those rumors, the White House pressures the United Kingdom with that decision to demand greater military spending in NATO.
“Something very strong has happened regarding the most important and sacred cause we Argentines have,” Milei celebrated this Tuesday, in an interview with radio El Observador. The Argentine president had already expressed, a month ago, his conviction: “The United States has changed its strategic vision of the world. It looks at this from a political perspective and a reliable ally is necessary in the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Argentina is meeting all those conditions and that is the key that will allow us to recover the Malvinas.”
The Government announced that Milei will deliver a message this Thursday regarding the southern islands. The president took advantage of the announcement to insist on the “sacred” nature of the claim and, from his social networks, attacked journalists who questioned his appeal to a message through the national media chain: “Human shits,” he called them.
UNBELIEVABLE
We announce a national broadcast for Thursday at 9:00 p.m. on a SACRED topic for Argentines such as the Malvinas cause, a historic claim of the Argentine people who to this day continue to see their national sovereignty violated, and the HUMAN SHITS…
— Javier Milei (@JMilei) September 1, 2026
The United Kingdom dismissed Trump’s statements and reaffirmed its occupation of the Malvinas. According to the English newspaper The Guardian, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Andy Burnham said this Tuesday: “The inhabitants of the Falkland Islands are British and have the right to determine their own future. They expressed their desire to remain a British overseas territory and our commitment to them is unwavering.”
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Oil exploitation
While those geopolitical movements were taking place, the Malvinas issue also entered the Argentine courts this Tuesday: two civil organizations denounced a project with British authorization to exploit oil in the islands and requested its suspension because, they argued, it harms the country’s resources and the biodiversity of the South Atlantic.
The lawsuit was filed by the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers and the Center of Malvinas Veterans (Cecim, from the city of La Plata) before a federal court in Río Grande, in the Patagonian province of Tierra del Fuego, to whose jurisdiction the islands belong. The complaint targets the exploitation shared by the oil companies Navitas, from Israel, and Rockhopper, British, the first initiative to produce hydrocarbons on a large scale in the Malvinas. Both companies began work this year to extract — from 2028 and for three decades, as planned — oil and gas in the offshore project called Sea Lion located about 220 kilometers north of the archipelago.
For the plaintiff organizations, the project approved by the British authorities of the islands is “unilateral, colonial and manifestly illegal,” because it does not respect Argentine laws and violates United Nations resolution 31/49. That norm urges the United Kingdom and Argentina to refrain “from adopting decisions that entail the introduction of unilateral modifications in the situation” of the islands while the sovereignty conflict is resolved.
“The defendant companies intend to carry out an activity likely to cause serious environmental damage to natural resources belonging to the Argentine Republic without their competent authorities having been able to evaluate its environmental consequences, nor has the Argentine State been able to access and fully control the technical information, demand independent studies, apply the principles of prevention and precaution, guarantee citizen participation and finally approve or reject the project,” the complaint details.
“We have high expectations. The first thing we seek is for the justice system to declare the illegality of the project and then we will go after its sources of financing,” explains Enrique Viale, president of the Association of Environmental Lawyers. “We are asking the court to issue an official letter to the main stock exchanges in the world where these companies are listed to find out the entire financing route. With that information, we will try to impose embargoes.”
Milei’s government had declared, last December, its “strongest rejection” of the Sea Lion project. “Argentina recalls that any unilateral exploration and exploitation of renewable and non-renewable natural resources in areas subject to sovereignty dispute is contrary” to what is established by the United Nations, indicated a communication from the Foreign Ministry. Since then, the Executive has not reported other measures in this regard. “The Argentine State is very inactive in the face of a situation that is very serious,” warns Viale. “If this project advances, the colonial enclave will be consolidated.”
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