Amid growing national outrage over the trade summit taking place in Punta Arenas between Chilean business leaders and corporations from the British occupation, Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno broke his silence this afternoon. Speaking to Radio La Red —and reported by the newspaper Ámbito Financiero —the head of the San Martín Palace stated that the Argentine government is closely monitoring the business round and issued a diplomatic warning: "We expect Chile to respect these treaties, just as we respect them."

However, behind the appeal to existing agreements, Quirno 's words revealed a striking complacency: the Argentine minister chose to distance José Antonio Kast's government from the maneuver, reducing the opening of the maritime corridor with the islands to an isolated initiative of the Magallanes municipality, on the same day that the Undersecretary of the Interior, Máximo Pavez , and the Foreign Minister, Francisco Pérez Mackenna, ratified that Chilean citizens "can carry out any economic and commercial activity from our ports as long as they comply with current legislation," including the Malvina Islands.  

The official fiction: Separating Kast from Magellan's logistics

In his radio address, Quirno attempted to downplay the impact of the summit that brought together nearly 90 companies at the Cabo de Hornos Hotel:

"We will act within the limits of our legal and diplomatic authority , " the Argentine Foreign Minister stated, after assuring that what happened in the south falls under the local jurisdiction of Mayor Claudio Radonich and is not a state policy of La Moneda (the Presidential Palace).

This distinction, attempted by the Argentine official, clashes head-on with the political and institutional reality of Chile. It wasn't just the Undersecretary of the Interior or Kast's Foreign Minister who publicly shielded the operation by affirming that Chilean citizens and companies have the right to trade with the colonial enclave from their ports ; days earlier, the Minister of Defense, Fernando Barros Tocornal, not only justified the Easter Island shipping line's route but also described the United Kingdom as a "friendly country," recognized its de facto exercise of sovereignty, and downplayed the Mercosur agreements as merely "political commitments and not legally binding."

To pretend that the opening of a deep-water port, the participation of Chilean-flagged shipping companies, and the presence of British trade delegations are a simple "municipal issue" defuses the pressure on the real political entity responsible: the central government in Santiago.

The appeal to the Milei-Kast pact

To justify his position, Quirno clung to the meeting that Javier Milei and Kast held in Santiago on September 3. The foreign minister asserted that the bilateral relationship is "very fluid and intense," emphasizing that "both governments agreed that Chile will not provide logistical support for the exploitation of natural resources in the islands" and maintaining that they have no reason to doubt their word.

The problem is that this word has already been violated in practice:

To say that Argentina "continues to monitor" while in Punta Arenas they are preparing to set sail for Puerto Argentino under the Chilean flag is a de facto renunciation of the active defense of our sovereign rights.

The diplomacy of contemplation and pleas for "good faith" from a government that supports trade with the invader weaken Argentina's position. If the Foreign Ministry refuses to confront La Moneda and disguises colonial aid as a "municipal matter," it is not exercising diplomatic prudence: it is tacitly condoning the consolidation of a logistical bridge that undermines bilateral treaties and fuels British usurpation in the South Atlantic.