Joe Markham

FALKLAND/MALVINAS ISLANDS—ARGENTINA—UK—USA When President Trump asked his allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and confront a nuclear-ambitious Iran, Britain temporized. London hesitated over the use of its bases, balked at sending warships, and insisted it would not be “dragged in.” When it was finally America’s turn to ask, the reciprocity Reagan had banked on did not arrive. Contrast Buenos Aires. President Javier Milei broke with much of his own region to stand — openly, unequivocally — with the United States and with Israel, offering precisely the solidarity Britain withheld. The junior partner of 1982 has become the steadfast one. The senior partner has become the reluctant one. Alliances are not heirlooms. They are living accounts of reciprocity, and Reagan’s decision was a discretionary deposit — not a permanent lien on American policy. If Britain will not spend its capital when Washington calls, no principle obliges Washington to keep spending its own to underwrite British sovereignty over two specks of land 8,000 miles from London, with a total human population of 3,000 and many times more sheep— islands the British call the Falklands and Argentines call the Malvinas. This is not a call for hostility toward a friend. It is a call for candor about what friendship requires. The Trump Administration should revisit the reflexive posture it inherited and ask one plain question: when the bill came due, who actually showed up? Reagan stood with Britain when Britain was the ally who counted. In 2026, the ally who counts may be flying a different flag.

If England beat Argentina tomorrow and reach the World Cup final, remember: It will be multi-racial England that has won. England in all its diversity. Not the narrow, exclusionary vision of England that Farage, Lowe, Robinson and others are trying to create.