At the southern edge of the continent, where the Andes dissolve into the sea, and Antarctica feels closer than Buenos Aires, the Port of Ushuaia has always been more than infrastructure. It is geography made political, with sovereignty poured into concrete. A gateway not just to commerce, but to the South Atlantic, the Antarctic, and the long, unresolved question of who controls the southern hemisphere’s future. That is why what is unfolding today in Ushuaia cannot be understood as a routine ‘administrative’ intervention. It is the latest chapter in a familiar South American story—where strategic assets are declared deficient, then stripped away from local hands, before quietly being repurposed to serve elite foreign interests under the language of efficiency, modernisation, or so-called peace.
Argentine politician and former Minister of Agrarian Affairs Alejandro “Topo” Rodríguez’s warning cuts through the fog: yesterday he announced via his social media account on X, that Argentina did not pay the billion dollars demanded to join Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” which was officially launched during the 56th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland. Instead, Argentina is paying with territory.
If we are to believe Alejandro Rodríguez’s statement, and there is no reason we shouldn’t, the exchange, or barter, did not take place on the docks of Ushuaia, nor in the legislature of Tierra del Fuego. It unfolded thousands of kilometres away, in Davos, amid snow-covered mountains and sealed conference rooms where power is traded in gestures and silence. There, President Javier Milei accepted Trump’s invitation to join the newly created Board of Peace, an initiative marketed as a platform for global stability but strangely structured as a real estate consortium, entirely outside the traditional architecture of international diplomacy. The price of admission was steep—one billion dollars, yet Argentina did not pay it.
Official statements and reports celebrated the savings. The country, they said, would not part with scarce funds during a time of economic adjustment. What they did not explain was how Argentina secured its seat at the table regardless.
That silence was broken not by a leak from within the government, but by a post on X from Rodríguez, a veteran Peronist politician and former national deputy, who is also the current director of the Instituto Consenso Federal. Rodríguez is not an outsider throwing stones. He is the consummate insider, with a career that spans legislative work, executive administration, and policy analysis. His message was blunt: Milei compensated for the unpaid billion dollars by offering the Port of Ushuaia. (more...)
Ushuaia and the Quiet Takeover of Argentina’s Gateway to Antarctica
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