Britain just threatened to block Argentina from a trade pact worth billions
1 hour ago · 16 October 2026Share
An offshore oil platform in the North Sea gas field. File photo. Gary Bembridge from London, UK · CC BY 2.0
Britain just said it might block Argentina from joining a major Pacific trade pact.
And this all started with oil.
Here's the setup. Argentina and Britain are fighting over Sea Lion, an oil project 220 kilometres north of the Falklands. Britain's Rockhopper Exploration and Israel's Navitas Petroleum run it together. They want to start pumping oil by 2028.
Javier Milei, Argentina's President, gave Britain a two-week ultimatum last month. Stop the project, he said, or face a legal fight. He called it the illegal plundering of Argentina's resources.
Britain didn't stop it. Five days ago, Britain rejected Argentina's claims outright. Two days after that, Britain said it would use its own "protection of trading interests" law to stop British companies and citizens having to obey any Argentine sanctions. That law should be in force by the end of the year.
So Argentina went to court instead. Three days ago, it asked the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg to order a halt to Sea Lion. No hearing date yet.
Now here's where trade comes in.
Three days ago, in the House of Commons, Wendy Morton stood up. She's the Conservative MP for Aldridge-Brownhills and her party's shadow minister for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. She told the government to get ready to block Argentina's bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, if Argentina keeps threatening over the islands.
But the government didn't go that far.
Uma Kumaran answered her. She's the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Overseas Territories. Kumaran said the UK doesn't comment publicly on accession talks or speculate about sanctions. She said Britain would consider quote "all appropriate measures". That's it. She never endorsed a CPTPP veto herself.
So right now, this is one opposition MP's demand. Not a government decision. Not yet.
The rest of this story is for members.
The Falkland Islands seen from space, located in the South Atlantic Ocean about 305 miles east of Argentina. File photo. MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC · Public domain
But here's why it could actually work.
Joining the CPTPP needs every single existing member to agree. Britain has been a member since 2024. So if Britain says no, Argentina is out. Doesn't matter what anyone else in the pact thinks.
And there's real money on the table. Argentina applied to join back in June. Its trade with the bloc's current members was worth $16.329 billion last year. Argentina ran a surplus of $8.93 billion on that. That's what's actually at stake here.
Argentina has also been leaning on the companies doing the drilling. Halliburton says it won't touch Sea Lion or any other Falklands oil project, after Argentine authorities got in touch. Two other contractors have walked away too. Navitas Petroleum says it's replacing them. Its chief executive, Ian Ramsey, says Britain has made clear it will defend the islands' right to lawful economic development.
That's the backdrop to what Kumaran actually said in Parliament. She said Argentina's attempts to disrupt economic activity in the Falklands "damage legal certainty". And the wider government statement goes further, saying Argentina's conduct raises very serious questions about its reliability as a partner.
Argentina's Foreign Minister, Pablo Quirno, argues the opposite.
His case is that it's Britain breaching UN resolutions that call for both countries to negotiate over the disputed resources. Not Argentina. He points to Britain honouring its own international commitments as the real test of reliability.
And Argentina's position here is messier than it looks.
Uruguay also wants into CPTPP. It applied back in December 2022 and has been in formal talks since November last year. Brazil, Argentina's biggest neighbour in Mercosur, has questioned both countries chasing separate CPTPP bids on their own. That's caused friction inside the bloc. So it's not clear Argentina even has enough support elsewhere to make membership worth fighting for, with or without Britain's vote.
And it's still not clear how far Britain will actually go. Kumaran's answer in Parliament stopped well short of a promise. No one in Argentina's government has responded to the CPTPP threat specifically. Only to the wider reliability accusation.
So here's where it stands. Argentina is pursuing Britain through a tribunal in Hamburg. A British minister is leaving the door open to blocking Argentina's path into a trade pact worth billions. Neither government has said this is where it ends.
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