Milei rides the world’s winds

Javier Milei is navigating international winds that have little to do with Argentina, yet they have given his government a chance to seize control of the political conversation again. For strategists in power, that control is itself a valuable asset. If the government can make the country talk about what it chooses, it regains centrality, even when the argument is only partly convincing or the agenda works against it in some respects.

This time, the opportunity came from Donald Trump’s ambiguous statement about the Falkland Islands. Asked whether the United States might abandon the strict neutrality it had traditionally maintained over the dispute, Trump said, “I am accustomed to always reviewing my positions.” Before there was even time to see whether he would review that position, the Argentine government seized on his words.

Santiago Caputo, described in the article as the “Kremlin wizard,” turned the remark into a communications campaign for the president. Its high point came with Milei’s national broadcast on the Falklands, the exploitation of resources near the islands and the need to militarize the South Atlantic to assert sovereignty. The government presented these advances as moves that would receive Trump’s support.

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I am accustomed to always reviewing my positions.

The maneuver has allowed Milei, at least temporarily, to take back the reins of a political scene that had been eluding him since the crisis involving Manuel Adorni. It also gives him a cause that Caputo called “sacred,” one that cuts across Argentine politics. Few people can oppose the country’s claim over the islands, which gives the issue a national dimension.

But what Milei presents as his own political achievement is, in this reading, the result of a game being played elsewhere and for other reasons. The backdrop is a stated willingness by Trump and the United States to alter some international-policy positions. The discussion over the archipelago is tied to the prolonged trauma of the conflict in Iran, which the article identifies as the deeper source of the current international shift.

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sacred