President Milei met US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau at the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, on Friday, a day after Landau said Washington is watching how Argentina’s Malvinas sanctions bill could affect American companies.
The meeting lasted about two hours, and regional security and counterterrorism were also on the agenda. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, US Ambassador Peter Lamelas and Argentina’s ambassador in Washington, Alec Oxenford, attended.
Washington’s worry, which US Ambassador Peter Lamelas had already pressed on Argentine officials, is that the bill reaches beyond the companies drilling off the islands. Its first draft also penalizes subsidiaries, shareholders, financial intermediaries and suppliers.
At a press conference on Thursday at the Palacio San Martín, the foreign ministry, Landau said Washington is looking at the interests of American companies, called that natural for any country, and stressed that the US respects Argentina’s legislative process. Quirno answered that the law is not aimed at any company in particular and said he hoped firms would choose mainland Argentina over what he called illegitimate licenses in the islands.
The government has since promised its allies in Congress, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Argentina, changes to the text. Sanctions would be limited to direct operators, license holders, suppliers and direct shareholders of projects on Argentine territory, which would spare indirect investment funds. Article 111, which sets up to 12 years in prison for foreign-funded disinformation campaigns and which opponents read as a tool against the press, would be reworked to exclude journalism and academic research.
The bill still has no committee report, the sign-off needed before a vote in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house. A committee meeting that was meant to produce one was cancelled after four meetings without agreement. The ruling party left the bill out of the last session and says the 2027 budget is its priority.
At the same press conference, Landau backed Washington’s call at the UN on Oct. 15 to end the mandate of the Special Committee on Decolonization, the forum where Argentina presses its Malvinas claim each year, as part of a wider overhaul of UN bodies. Quirno called Argentina’s claim “non-negotiable” and said it would not change if the committee disappeared. Argentina abstained that day on two of 23 decolonization resolutions, which Quirno attributed to technical reasons.
A session of the full chamber on Wednesday, October 28 would need a deal among the parties by Tuesday, which ruling-party lawmakers call very unlikely. The government wants the budget on the floor on November 18.