US sets its sights on Antarctica in pushback against China

 

Mar Centenera El Pies

 

 

For the second time in a year, the Southern Command visits the Naval Base in Ushuaia, which it projects as a gateway to the white continent.

 

The United States’ offensive to reduce Chinese influence in Latin America has another key player this week: the head of the U.S. Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey. The U.S. official is on a three-day visit to Argentina, with stops in the capital Buenos Aires and in the southern city of Ushuaia, the country’s gateway to Antarctica. In the capital, Holsey met on Tuesday with Argentine President Javier Milei, with Defense Minister Luis Petri and with the top brass of the Armed Forces. But the highlight of the trip came on Wednesday, when Holsey traveled to Ushuaia, where Milei is planning to build an integrated naval base and a large Antarctic logistics hub.

 

This is a unique project that will be built in several phases. The integrated naval base will have its own facilities and will carry out maintenance and repair work with private participation, according to military sources cited by the newspaper La Nación. The government has not provided official figures so far, but unofficial reports suggest an approximate investment of $360 million.

Washington’s geostrategic interest in this project goes beyond political ideologies. Argentina’s former president Alberto Fernández had first approached China to seek funding, but nothing materialized. As soon as Milei succeeded Fernández, the Biden administration took advantage of the new far-right president’s gestures of alignment with the United States to send the then-head of Southern Command, General Laura Richardson, to Ushuaia. A year later, Holsey has repeated her visit.

 

In April of last year, the Argentine president traveled the 1,860 miles separating Buenos Aires from this city of 80,000 residenst to meet briefly with Richardson and announce the creation of the joint naval base. “This is a major logistics center that will constitute the closest development port to Antarctica and will make our countries the gateway to the white continent,” Milei said at the time.

 

 

Ushuaia is 620 miles from Antarctica. The Chilean base at Punta Arenas is 870 miles away. These are shorter distances than those of other countries in the Southern Hemisphere: South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

 

The official purpose of the visit was to “supervise firsthand the role of Argentine forces in protecting key maritime routes for global trade,” according to the statement issued by the Southern Command. The Trump administration is also interested in the Ushuaia bi-oceanic passage, in parallel with the pressure it is exerting on Panama to secure control of the Canal. In both cases, Trump’s move seeks to displace Beijing from strategic spaces in Latin America following the Asian power’s advance on the continent in recent years.

 

Milei’s enthusiasm for the United States’ presence in the far south of the country contrasts with the attitude of the provincial governor, the Peronist Gustavo Melella. On Wednesday, as he did a year earlier, Melella criticized the visit of someone he considers an ally of Great Britain: “We do not and will not support the installation of military bases or radars that could serve British interests in the South Atlantic.” At the national level, a large segment of Peronism — the political movement born out of the populist ideas of 20th-century president Juan Perón and his wife Evita— has also expresses discontent with Milei’s decision to align with the United States, thus upsetting the balance established by his predecessors between the two competing powers.

 

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