Milei makes snap trip to Ushuaia to meet Southern Command Chief Richardson — MercoPress

Milei makes snap trip to Ushuaia to meet Southern Command Chief Richardson

Milei gave a press conference in the early hours of Friday after meeting Richardson

Argentine President Javier Milei made a snap trip to Ushuaia late Thursday to meet US Southern Command Chief General Laura Richardson after Governor Gustavo Melella refused to welcome her and insisted she was “persona non grata.”

Milei’s flight aboard a Brazilian-built Embraer 140 jet of the Argentine Air Force arrived after 11 pm following a refueling stop in Río Gallegos.

During a press conference in the wee hours of Friday, Milei highlighted that Richardson’s presence in the country was key “to strengthening alliances” because “we Argentines as a people have a natural affinity with the United States, we both belong to the Western tradition.”

“A tradition that has at its base the ideas of freedom, the defense of life and private property,” Milei added.

Milei also thanked US President Joseph Biden’s support to his administration before addressing the problem of illegal fishing in Argentine waters in addition to criticizing Communism.

“Many governments of Argentina, of different political signs, in the last decades, have filled their mouths talking about sovereignty, but they have done nothing for it. They have done nothing to defend our territorial and fluvial borders from drug trafficking. They have done nothing to investigate the Islamic terrorism that we have unfortunately suffered. And they have done nothing to defend the territorial integrity of our Argentine Sea, which year after year has been invaded by illegal fishing boats and draining its fish resources,” Milei stressed.

Melella, an ally of Kirchnerism, had warned during the April 2 Veteran’s Day commemoration that “we are not going to welcome formally, officially, and in any way the Chief of the United States Southern Command because they carry out military practices together with Great Britain in the South Atlantic.”

Tierra del Fuego political circles were very critical of the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher-admiring Milei, who did not participate in any of the local events honoring the fallen during the 1982 war and yet showed up 48 hours later to meet with Richardson.

According to Infobae, “the scenario of the President’s meeting with General Richardson is not a coincidence: [Chinese President] Xi Jinping is pushing for the construction of a port in Tierra del Fuego which would allow Beijing to monitor the bioceanic passage and place an enclave of its own at the gates of Antarctica.”