US Southern Command personnel visit Ushuaia in Argentina, April 30, 2025. Photo: SOUTHCOM.
By Telma Luzzani – Jun 25, 2025
Although it seems like years, it has been only five months since President Donald Trump took office in the White House for the second time. His goal—effectively condensed in the slogan MAGA (Make America Great Again)—is to do whatever needs to be done to regain the lost primacy. It contemplates an unconventional socio-economic-political revolution whose scope involves us. For many reasons, Argentina and, above all, our South, are in the Trumpist “restoration” plan.
He said it clearly on January 20, 2025, when he took office in the White House: “An exciting new era of national success is beginning… From this moment on, the decline of the US is over”.
Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who is very influential in the Kremlin, assures that “Trump’s foreign policy proposes a change in two stages: first, to go from a globalist perspective to American centrism and then to American expansionism”. According to Dugin, “the clearest examples are Trump’s statements on the annexation of Canada as a 51st state; the purchase of Greenland; taking control of the Panama Canal; and renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.”
However, Dugin’s analysis is incomplete. The Russian scholar has not taken into account one of the fundamental strategic points that the US needs to master to successfully achieve the controlled transformation of the world order that Trump proposes. That strategic point is the south of the American continent, specifically Tierra del Fuego and Antarctica (it already has a NATO base in the Falkland Islands).
The US president has not vociferated the plan on the south as he did with Canada, Greenland, and Panama. It was not necessary. Under the presidency of Javier Milei, submissive Argentina joined, without complaining, the neocolonialist international distribution decided from the financial centers. It did so even before Trump came to power.
In April 2024, dressed in military uniform, Milei met in Ushuaia with the then-head of the Southern Command, General Laura Richardson (the one who warned us that Argentinian lithium belonged to the US), to announce “the development of an Integrated Naval Base” in Tierra del Fuego. The space would turn both countries “into the gateway” to Antarctica.
The idea of the base had already been planned by the government of Alberto Fernández with the aim of taking advantage of Ushuaia’s exceptional location and turning the place into a multifunctional pole of access to Antarctica. The objective was that Argentina, through a state-of-the-art port and logistic infrastructure, could offer the world’s countries services that would mean a reduction in navigation times, rescue of ships in emergency, installation of scientific spaces, improved access to the Antarctic continent, among other benefits.
These works, initially conceived from a perspective of total adherence to the dictates of national sovereignty, began in March 2022, when then-Minister of Defense Jorge Taiana entrusted the Tandanor shipyard with the planning and start of the works.
The interest shown by China since the beginning of the project was, undoubtedly, one of the causes that set off the US’s alarms. Washington does not want the nightmare called Port of Chancay to be reproduced miles away from Antarctica. The mega-port that has just been inaugurated on the Peruvian Pacific coast is the first intelligent one in Latin America. It is expected to produce $4.5 billion in annual earnings and generate 8,000 direct jobs in Peru.
For this reason, last April, when the new head of the Southern Command, Alvin Holsey, visited Tierra del Fuego, he made it clear that the strategic control of the South Atlantic and access to Antarctica from the Argentinian base were now in the hands of the Pentagon. “The US wants to reinforce military cooperation with the objective of strengthening regional security and advancing shared interests,” Holsey said from the Integrated Naval Base. Then, the US embassy added that the objective is “to learn about operations at the base and the key role they play in protecting vital shipping lanes for global trade.”
In addition to the management of the base, the Pentagon demanded the operation of the LeoLabs radar, built near the town of Tolhuin, in Tierra del Fuego. The radar is used for military intelligence and, worse, has been used by the United Kingdom for harmful purposes against Argentina. LeoLabs is a private American company, officially based in London.
The radar was deactivated in 2023 by order of the previous government. Former Minister Taiana, with evidence based on a technical report, denounced LeoLabs for “violating national security since it would allow the United Kingdom to monitor Argentinian civil and military satellite activity, intercept data and observe terrestrial and maritime targets, or detect aircraft.” This is “incompatible with the National Defense Policy Directive.” On the other hand, Taiana explained that “it is not possible to ignore the geopolitical connotations of the installation of the AGSR Station by a company legally domiciled in Great Britain.”
‘We Are at Serious Risk’: US Pushes for Naval Base in Southern Argentina
This unacceptable violation of Argetina’s sovereignty was harshly criticized by Gustavo Melella, Governor of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica, and South Atlantic Islands (AeIAS), who condemned Milei’s surrender policy and stated: “Tierra del Fuego is a peace zone, we do not need foreign military bases.” Melella stated:
It is inadmissible that the Ministry of Defense grants—after the request of the Southern Command’s Commander Holsey—the authorization to LeoLabs to operate. Meanwhile, it was the company itself that reported the existence of a contract with the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom to provide it with information for the monitoring, control, and surveillance of our South Atlantic.
We have not received any formal request from the US for a hearing. There are two issues in which I am certain that neither our government nor anyone in the province will support: the authorization for the LeoLabs’ radar to operate and the installation of a foreign military base or any other development that is or may become functional to the British who invade our South Atlantic.
Days later, Melella asked Argentina to reject the appointment of David Cairns as the new British ambassador in the country, since he is an accomplice in the plundering of our oil. Cairns should take office in September 2025. As reported by the British Foreign Ministry, Cairns has been vice president of the oil company Equinor from “2019 to the present.” Equinor is the company that advised the UK on the illegal exploitation of hydrocarbons in Argentinian waters surrounding the Falkland Islands.
“The United Kingdom openly violates its international obligations: it maintains its military occupation, denies dialogue on sovereignty, illegally exploits our resources, and now pretends that we accept as an interlocutor one more cog in that colonial machinery,” Melella argued in his X account.
This imperialist advance on the territory, encouraged by the Milei government, has two main axes: the militarization of Argentina’s South and the boycott of the successful industrial management of Tierra del Fuego. The elimination of obstacles to the importation of foreign telephones and electronic products, whose immediate consequence will be the bankruptcy of Argentinian companies, is not an economic-social measure but a geostrategic one.
The Trumpist objective of recovering US primacy is not our cause. Moreover, defending it and accepting militarization may imply a very high cost for our younger generations. Let us respond before it is too late.
