Britain needs to tread carefully with Argentina over the Falklands. A shark is circling - Tobias Ellwood

Other than a few games of international rugby and an unwise visit by Top Gear, Argentina has featured little in Britain’s psyche and still seems through the prism of that 1982 military encounter.

More than forty years on, it's time to update our views, and President Javier Gerardo Milei’s visit to Britain allows us to do just that. Argentina is no longer governed by a military junta but by a democracy wrestling with profound economic challenges.

Let’s be deterred by any reference to reclaim the Malvinas. All Presidents peddle these lines for domestic reasons. The threat is not there. But it could return if we fail to grasp the bigger picture

To confirm Britain’s position is immovable: the Falklands remain a British Overseas Territory, and if the islanders wish to remain so, this status will not change.

A poll in 2013 confirmed 99 per cent of the population are content with the status quo. Visit the islands today, and the air, land and sea (including sub-surface) defences are impressive – more than enough to hold back a land incursion before back arrives.

The President invites us to look beyond old reflexes. Argentina is seeking investment, stability, and new trading partnerships -including in defence.

And this is where Britain faces a strategic choice. Maintaining our blanket ban on defence exports to Argentina may satisfy a certain patriotic sentiment, but it increasingly works against our broader geopolitical interests, which get lost in the populist noise of Falklands support.

If the West steps back, we leave a vacuum, and China is ready to pounce. It's already active all over Latin America with financing, technology, and political influence that will shape the continent for decades.

Argentina is openly weighing the purchase of Chinese fast jets and other platforms. When these deals are signed, an army of Chinese ground support moves in, providing infrastructure, training pipelines, and upgrade development – ensnaring the military into reliance on China for its defence.

Beijing would then seek a maritime base from which to patrol the Southern Atlantic in return for providing vital ISTAR intelligence required to retake the islands. Worst case – one of the islands is gifted to China to become a new military fortress, copying its Spratly Islands playbook.

Venezuela stands as a vivid example of what unfolds when Western nations disengage, and China fills the strategic void. It’s on a serious mission to deepen economic, political, and military ties throughout the region,

As Chair of the Defence Committee, I recall in March 2023, a telling moment during a visit to Washington. Our embassy there urged me to lobby our own Government to lift its objections to the United States selling F-16s to Argentina.

The sticking point? The aircraft used a British-made Martin-Baker ejection seat. We refused. The sale proceeded anyway - simply with a non-British replacement. We protected nothing while forfeiting influence.

This highlights a wider truth: the old, populist instinct to block arms exports to Argentina misunderstands the modern landscape. Operationally, today’s advanced platforms incorporate monitoring systems (nicknamed kill switches) and, where necessary, safeguards that can limit or disable capability.

Engagement with our old foe no longer carries the same risks it once did. But disengagement carries far greater risks: pushing states toward China, forfeiting leverage, and weakening the rule-of-law-based international system we claim to support.

South America is entering a new geopolitical chapter. If Argentina is looking outward again, we should not push it further into Beijing’s orbit.

The Falklands are settled by international law and by the will of the islanders. The strategic question now is different: will Britain choose to shape Argentina’s future relationship with the West, or simply watch others do so in our place