ALONG the Beagle Channel, an icy stretch of water at the southern tip of the Americas, a concrete slab rises from hills covered in low, brownish scrub.
This is the dormant site of the proposed Ushuaia naval base that rightwing Argentine President Javier Milei wants to revive to serve as a military and logistical hub in the South Atlantic.
In early September, he ordered that priority be given in the government’s 2027 budget to “the development of the Integrated Naval Base and other strategic projects”. That message came in a speech where Milei also took a tougher line on Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the British-held Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic — known in Argentina as Las Malvinas, and scene of a 1982 war between the two countries.
The Falklands lie about 560 kilometres (350 miles) to the northeast of Ushuaia. The foundation stone for the Ushuaia base was laid in 2022 by the previous center-left government in Buenos Aires, but work has since stalled.
Only about nine per cent of the project has been completed, according to a government report submitted to lawmakers in mid-2025.
AFP
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