Donald Trump, closely allied with Argentina’s president Javier Milei, was studying the prospect of backing Buenos Aires in the Falklands last year – a secret plan that fuelled a long-running territorial dispute just as the two countries prepared for a World Cup clash. The revelation comes as the South American nation seeks to reignite tensions before what will be only the sixth World Cup tie between England and Argentina. Last Saturday, Argentina’s foreign minister Pablo Quirno wrote a newspaper article claiming the inhabitants of the Falklands were “artificially implanted” and rejected a 2013 referendum that reaffirmed British sovereignty. In celebration, Argentina’s players chanted they would beat the Three Lions “for the Malvinas”. Victoria Villaruel, Argentina’s combative vice-president, described England as “usurping pirates”.
The Falklands dispute has its roots in the 18th century: Britain first settled the archipelago in 1765, France and Spain also claimed parts, and Britain withdrew voluntarily in 1774 but never renounced sovereignty. The 1982 war claimed 900 lives. Milei had sought to tone down rhetoric and broker an end to the British ban on weapons exports, but Trump’s backing of Argentina has reignited tensions.
“Trump secretly studied backing Argentina in Falklands last year while pushing Nato overhaul with 70,000-strong security clampdown.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has advanced “Nato 3.0”, a plan to return the alliance to its Cold War purpose of European deterrence and defence. The brainchild of Undersecretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, Nato 3.0 is “a return to and validation of its foundational purpose”, ensuring Europeans pour billions into defence industrial production and technological innovation. At a Nato summit in Ankara, Trump praised Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The summit was secured by roughly 70,000 personnel – double the number at last year’s summit in The Hague – and saw all protests banned and hundreds of Nato critics and Left-wing activists arrested. Senior Nato officials spoke of the need to build “a stronger Europe in a stronger Nato” and recited figures testifying to leaps in European defence spending. One senior official cited the “simultaneity problem” – the Trump administration’s concern about the US military being forced to fight multiple major conflicts at once – as the reason “why Europeans are stepping up and taking more responsibility for their own defence”.