The Trump game plan to ‘squeeze Britain’ over the Falklands

BUENOS AIRES – The war of words between Britain and Argentina is hotting up. Yet behind the escalating tensions is a boiling cauldron of political machinations featuring none other than US President Donald Trump – whose dark game plan is helping Buenos Aires put pressure on the Falklands. I’ve reported on Argentina since the Falklands War of 1982. Indeed, the late president Carlos Menem finally ended “the state of war” with Britain in an interview with me in 1989. More recently, I was a UN diplomat, then a correspondent from Buenos Aires. But never in all those years have I sensed – from all sides – the serious standoff that is now under way. From what I’ve seen going on here, Britain should be worried. Trump has given his close ally, the populist Argentinian President Javier Milei, a playbook to squeeze the Falklands and the British Government on multiple fronts – and both behind the scenes and on the international stage, it’s ramping up. Shorts Just like the US President’s own campaigns to force other countries to heel, this playbook consists of a legal, criminal, economic and, of course, propaganda war. Recently, Milei openly threatened legal action against the British Government unless it halted the Sea Lion oilfield project by Israeli and British companies off the coast of the Falkland Islands, claiming it amounted to an “illegal plundering of our resources”. He warned that Argentina would take the matter before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. The Falklands are a self-governing British Overseas Territory and the UK has said “the islanders’ right to self-determination is paramount”. However, the standoff has become the most serious conflict between the two countries since Argentina’s military junta invaded the islands, sparking a conflict back in 1982. On Wednesday, Milei said he favoured diplomacy over military solutions to take the Falklands, known as the Islas Malvinas in Argentina. A mural commemorating the 1982 war over the Falkland Islands, known as the Malvinas in Argentina, in Buenos Aires (Photo: Alessia Maccioni/Reuters) Yet, don’t expect that so-called diplomacy to be Argentina’s main means of pressuring Britain. Trump’s outsized influence in this conflict is clear – and that means it is only going to get worse. In Argentina, we are already seeing the evidence of Trump’s hand, in echoes of his administration’s claims that the West is being destroyed by migration. Milei’s presidential adviser and right-hand man Santiago Caputo has claimed that Buenos Aires must recover the Falklands because Britain is being “colonised by Islam”. As such, he says, Argentina’s cause is not just a national one but “a cause of the West” to prevent Islamic takeover of the South Atlantic. It’s like listening to Trump or his Vice President JD Vance bellowing over Islam running Europe and throwing their weight behind the far right. The rhetoric is hitting such outrageous levels that recently Britain’s ambassador to Argentina, David Cairns, a savvy and engaging fellow, felt obliged to get up and leave an official dinner early, cameras rolling on him for all to see, after Argentina’s foreign minister lambasted “British occupation” of the Islands and “illegal exploitation of resources that belong to Argentina”. The minister then quickly lumped Iran next into the list of Argentina’s enemies. “The ambassador was made to feel somehow Britain and Iran represent an axis of evil,” said one senior embassy source. The source accepted that the early exit was not a good look for any diplomat. “The squeeze is on, and we fear what might be coming next – a power play to throttle the Islands’ economy.” Certainly, for those of us who have watched Trump bedevil his enemies with legal, at times criminal proceedings, Milei’s government has clearly adopted the advice that he is understood to have received when he joined Trump for a session at the United Nations in New York, in late September. “Trump gave our President a sort of game plan for the Malvinas,” one of Milei’s leading allies-cum adviser, told me. “The advice was to squeeze Britain hard into a corner, with Trump ready to help at some point down the road.” So much for Trump glad-handing Andy Burnham, calling him “a natural business person,” at the same time at the UN General Assembly. You don’t have to look very hard to see the fallout. Milei, issuing calls for national unity ahead of tight presidential elections next year, has launched criminal complaints, sanction proceedings and even gone to Interpol to seek action against executives and companies linked to that Sea Lion oil exploration project in waters close to the Falklands. Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands. Argentina’s military junta invaded the islands back in 1982, sparking a conflict (Photo: Ricardo Mazalan/Reuters) “This is so obviously a Trump-like gambit, designed to tie us up in various courts, it’s the Trump way, doesn’t he have everyone from the BBC to the former head of the FBI in court?” said the embassy source. Maybe. But what’s also at work now is Milei’s future as President. From the moment back in August when Trump gave him the gift of the United States no longer intervening on Britain’s behalf over the Falklands, payback for Britain’s patent ambivalence over his disastrous war with Iran, Milei has used the “Malvinas” as a powerful rallying cry ahead of Argentinian elections next year, with polls currently too close to call. “Nothing unites Argentines like the Malvinas, OK?” said the key ally of Milei. “Now we have a campaign issue. We have moved the dial on the Islands dramatically with Trump’s support for the President.” He paused, then added: “Can you imagine how this country will react, and the international community will respond, if Trump tells Britain to negotiate an end to this, and questions how far the Malvinas are from London.” He sounds like a man who believes Trump has promised Milei exactly that. He nods quietly when I ask him to confirm. Indeed, when asked about the Falklands, Trump recently said: “It’s a long way away from Britain”. All of which has one longtime source at the Foreign Office in London a little flustered. “We know this time is geopolitically different, and that Trump’s focus on making the Americas speak with one voice. Well, it moves the goalposts,” said the source. That’s a far cry from what had been the Foreign Office edict and talking points to the embassy at the start of this latest round of war of words: “Silence, no need to answer Argentina’s bombast…. Leave it to the Daily Express and the Daily Telegraph… And remember, this is a unifying issue for Britain too, not just Argentina.” As for Milei’s re-election strategy, Trump’s help and counsel on the Islands represent a gamble probably worth taking, given the way his numbers have suffered due to Argentina’s rising cost of living, unemployment and the lack of growth promised, even if he can expect little or no movement on the Falklands issue over the next year. Trump himself also divides Argentines. “Milei has a high number rejecting him, for whatever reason,” says Martha Reale, a leading pollster. “The Malvinas could help him at the margins, because it’s such a populist cause.” However, whatever the doubts about Trump and his incoherent, at times vicious and vicarious behaviour, he may have done us a favour of sorts. He’s put the Falklands on the radar of issues on which we might seek compromise and have the South Atlantic – with its potential goldmine of resources, from oil and gas to minerals to fish – work for the good and maybe prosperity of all. Just as long as we don’t give the man at the White House the Nobel Peace Prize for his blatant use of power and muscle for his own cynical, vengeful ends.