Milei announces a “joint naval base” with the United States in Argentine Patagonia

The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, traveled this Thursday due to a last-minute decision to the Patagonian city of Ushuaia and, almost around midnight, he met there with the head of the United States Southern Command, General Laura Richardson. On her third day of visiting Argentina, the military delegate of Joe Biden's Government for South America visited a naval base in Ushuaia, and the Argentine president decided to travel the 3,000 kilometers that separate that city from Buenos Aires to demonstrate that the United States will be your great partner in defense matters. Dressed as a military man during an event at the city's naval base where the anthems of Argentina and the United States were heard, Milei stated that “the West is at risk” and that Argentines have “a natural affinity” with the United States, with whom they share “ “the defense of life, liberty and private property.” Later, he announced the construction of a joint naval base in the area. “It is a large logistics center that will constitute the closest development port to Antarctica and will make our countries the gateway to the white continent,” Milei explained.

Richardson, an active voice on American concern about China's influence in South America, arrived in Ushuaia to see the work of the naval authorities who control commercial maritime routes in the South Atlantic after days in which both the American embassy and The Argentine Government raised their doubts about the Chinese presence in Patagonia. On Monday, during an interview with the newspaper The nation, The US ambassador to Argentina, Marc Stanley, stated that the Chinese Armed Forces operated secretly in the area without providing evidence. “I am surprised that Argentina allows the Chinese Armed Forces to operate in Neuquén, secretly, doing who knows what,” he said. By agreements signed between 2012 and 2014, China maintains a 200-hectare space observation base in the province of Neuquén, where it is not allowed to carry out military research. The Minister of the Interior, Guillermo Francos, wanted to bury the controversy and stated that they were “particular observations” of the ambassador, but the Government later stated that it will seek to carry out “technical inspections” at the Chinese space base in Neuquén.

Milei did not name China, but in his speech on Thursday he stated that “many governments in Argentina have talked about sovereignty, but they have done nothing for it.” “They have done nothing to defend our territorial and river borders from the entry of drug trafficking. They have done nothing to investigate the Islamic terrorism that we have unfortunately suffered. And they have done nothing to defend the territorial integrity of our Argentine Sea, which year after year has been invaded by illegal fishing vessels and draining its fish resources,” said the president. The presence of foreign fishing vessels, many of them flying the Chinese flag, working on the edge of the Argentine maritime border in the South Atlantic, is a problem that the Armed Forces have been monitoring for years.

Richardson, who arrived in Argentina on Tuesday and will depart this Friday after the delivery of a Hercules plane to the Argentine Government, was an uncomfortable presence in the country. The governor of Tierra del Fuego, Gustavo Melella, from the center-left, had stated days ago that he would declare her persona non grata during his visit to the city of Ushuaia and that he would not receive her. “We are not going to formally, officially and in any way receive the Chief of the Southern Command of the United States because they carry out military practices alongside Great Britain in the South Atlantic,” he said on April 2, during an event commemorating the veterans of the war on the islands occupied by the United Kingdom and that Argentina tried to recover in an invasion in April 1982. The general had already met in Buenos Aires with members of Milei's cabinet, but faced with the rudeness of the local authorities, The president decided to travel to the province this Thursday to accompany her.

The Milei Government has not offered more information about the construction of a naval base in Patagonia with the participation of the United States. In 2022, the Government of former Peronist President Alberto Fernández inaugurated works for another base, called the Antarctic Logistics Pole, with a military dock in the South Atlantic. Milei said Thursday night that he “monitors” the progress in that work, but did not clarify whether the United States will now participate in the construction or if the project he has announced is new. His spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, has not clarified this either this Friday in his daily conference. “Yesterday the announcement was made and work is going to start on it,” Adorni said. “The details are not there yet.”

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