BUENOS AIRES, September 5 — Argentine President Javier Milei has escalated his long-running campaign over the Falkland Islands, demanding a Hong Kong-style handover of the territory to Argentina and threatening economic sanctions against British oil operations in the South Atlantic. In an interview with The Economist published after a combative televised address from the presidential palace on Thursday night, Milei cited the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration — the agreement that led to the UK returning Hong Kong to China in 1997 — as a model for resolving the dispute.
“The UK did this with Hong Kong, so why not find the agreement so that sooner or later the islands return to Argentina?” he said. “They’re ours.” Strategically, the comparison is a fraught one.
Hong Kong citizens were never given a vote on the handover, and while the territory retained its own laws and political system for a 50-year period ending in 2047, China has been widely accused of violating the agreement through its authoritarian suppression of political dissent and public protest. Milei, who once praised Margaret Thatcher as one of “the great leaders in the history of humanity,” insisted that Argentines “do not believe in war” and would not “start yelling like savages” over the archipelago.
The Argentine leader, flanked by his cabinet in Buenos Aires, declared that “the islands are ours, by history and by right, and they were taken from us.” He announced plans for a new military base in Tierra del Fuego, the part of Argentina closest to the Falklands, and warned of sanctions designed to stop companies drilling at the Sea Lion oilfield, which holds 1.7 billion barrels of oil.
Argentina, he said, would use “all the tools of the state: diplomatic, economic, judicial and legal” to impede drilling — though he made no mention of military action. His broader argument rests on a claim that Britain is “on a path of decline,” beset by “multiple crises” — social, economic and immigration-related — and that the islanders have no right to self-determination.
Milei, who sits a year away from an election and is tanking in the polls, said Argentina “will prevail.” He also pointed to US President Donald Trump as a source of tailwind, claiming Trump has announced that Washington is re-evaluating its historic position on the Malvinas — the Argentine name for the islands. Trump has reportedly hinted he would not back Britain if Argentina invaded again, owing to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s failure to support his war with Iran. British officials pushed back hard.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said Milei’s statement “tells us more about domestic politics in Argentina than it does about the Falkland Islands,” adding that the islands are British because their residents choose to be. Senior minister Lucy Powell dismissed the Argentine president as “simply posturing” ahead of his country’s elections.
But the political calculus in London is not entirely unified. Lord McDonald, a former head of the Foreign Office, told the BBC that Labour should review Britain’s Falklands policy and open diplomatic talks with Argentina over the islands’ future, citing the cost of defending them and their distance from the UK. That argument gained an uncomfortable edge on Thursday night, when it emerged that the Army is being forced to cancel training exercises to save £30 million (approximately US$38 million) amid Labour’s refusal to increase defence spending.
What this signals is a hardening of Argentina’s position at a moment when Britain’s financial constraints and Washington’s ambivalence are both in plain view. The coming months will show whether Milei’s “consensus solution” gains any traction — or whether it remains, as London insists, a rhetorical gambit from a president fighting for political survival.
