Milei allocates more defense funds to build naval base near the Falklands

Argentina has redirected defense funds toward an integrated naval base in Tierra del Fuego, at the country’s southern tip and near the Falkland Islands, whose sovereignty Buenos Aires claims from the United Kingdom.

President Javier Milei’s decree orders changes to the Defense Ministry’s budget to strengthen the armed forces through the incorporation, modernization and recovery of equipment. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno confirmed that the money would support construction of the base in Tierra del Fuego.

Milei also said Argentina would accelerate and toughen sanctions against oil companies operating in the Falklands without Argentine authorization. He announced plans to build the naval facility in Ushuaia, the provincial capital. The project was first announced in 2022 under President Alberto Fernández but stalled after Milei imposed sweeping spending cuts when he took office at the end of 2023.

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It will be a completely Argentine base.

Opposition figures have accused Milei, who considers the United States and Israel his main foreign-policy allies, of offering Washington the use of the future base. Quirno rejected that suggestion, saying, “It will be a completely Argentine base.” He said Argentina now had fiscal space to make the investment without disrupting fiscal balance.

Quirno described the site as a strategic point in the South Atlantic for access to Antarctica and monitoring activities in waters under Argentine jurisdiction. He also said the base would provide a logistics hub and strengthen Argentina’s presence in the region. Argentina, he added, would “never” attempt to recover sovereignty over the islands through a war like the 1982 conflict with Britain.

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Never will we try to recover sovereignty over the islands through an armed conflict.