Tierra del Fuego: Rethinking Geopolitics Southwards

In 1520, after winter weather forced Charles V’s expedition to wait for months in what is known today as Argentina, Ferdinand Magellan discovered an archipelago at the southern extremity of South America and named it Tierra del Fuego—Spanish for ‘Land of Fire’—, becoming the first European to reach the Pacific from the Atlantic. In 38 days, he managed to navigate the 570 km passage which separates the mainland tip of the continent and Tierra del Fuego that is now named in his honour, the Magellan Strait. Shorter and safer than the infamous Drake Passage, the channel positioned an unexplored region of the world in the geopolitical map as it remained an important route for ships moving between the Atlantic and Pacific for centuries.

After the decline of the Spanish empire, even though the foundation of Punta Arenas city dates back to 1848, it was not until 1862 that a major Chilean military campaign was put underway to effectively control the southern lands when a French citizen named Orelie-Antoine De Tounens self-proclaimed as King of Araucania and Patagonia. Argentina followed suit with its ‘Conquest of the Desert’ not only against hostile Patagonian tribes but also to stop Chilean expansionism. Moreover, in 1884 after erecting the lighthouse in Isla de los Estados—which inspired Jules Verne’s novel ‘Le Phare du bout du monde’—the Argentine Navy Expeditionary Division to the South Atlantic took down the British flag and founded Ushuaia city, in a place where an Anglican missionary had been settled with the help of the British authorities in Islas Malvinas— an occupied archipelago since 1833 after Argentinean citizens and authorities were removed.

The opening of the Panama Canal in the 20^th century relegated the Magellan Strait, but the strategic interests of Argentina, Chile and the UK over the surrounding area remained intact. This year, both neighbouring countries presented a joint proposal to the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources in order to create a Marine Protected Area in waters next to Western Antarctic Peninsula and South Scotia Arc. Nevertheless, even after resolving the long-standing Beagle Channel dispute that almost led to war in the late 1970s, according to recent leaks the Chilean Army still considers a scenario where Argentinean troops could attack Chile through Tierra del Fuego while Argentina is setting up a joint garrison in its part of the island. On the other hand, while the UK’s arms embargo on Argentina undermines the efforts to modernize its armed forces since the South Atlantic War, a dual use radar in Tolhuin city was recently left inoperative by Argentina due to British participation in LeoLabs as it could gather intelligence over disputed areas.

Being both peripheral and strategic at the same time, Tierra del Fuego’s geographical settings are also included in political calculations way beyond these actors, achieving geopolitical significance amid tensions between China and Western countries and the opportunities driven by the acceleration of the world’s energy transition in the context of a global energy crisis.

In November 2022, an article published by Intelligence Online said Beijing was making progress in order to build a naval base in Ushuaia city, something president Fernandez denied shortly afterwards in an interview with Financial Times. This year, amid controversy after a Memorandum of Understanding between the Province of Tierra del Fuego and Chinese state-owned Shaanxi Chemical Industry Group Co. Ltd. came to light, plans of constructing a chemical pole and a multipurpose port in Rio Grande city were aborted. The Argentine opposition pointed out that this would not only allow China to have direct access to Antarctica but also to easily control the passage of vessels through the Magellan Strait—supplying the massive Chinese illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing fleet which every season pops up in Argentina’s Economic Exclusive Zone.

Even when those were the same reasons behind the visits of former US Southern Command Admiral Craig S. Faller and his successor General Laura J. Richardson to Argentina in 2021 and 2022 respectively, the Chilean city of Punta Arenas has been the starting point for both NASA’s Operation IceBridge and US polar ships Nathaniel B. Palmer and Laurence M. Gould heading towards Antarctica. Furthermore, Freedom of Navigation Operations performed by the US Navy through the Magellan Strait have been taking place for years, considering both Nimitz and Gerald Ford-class aircraft carriers were not designed to fit through the Panama Canal.

Beijing’s growing sway in Latin America has raised concerns beyond Washington. In an attempt to win the region back from China while searching for alternatives to Russian gas, Ursula von der Leyen continued charm offensive at the last EU-CELAC Summit in Brussels taking further steps in energy cooperation with Argentina and Chile. While both Southern Cone countries are positioning themselves at the forefront of a global transition towards renewable energy with more than half of the world’s known lithium reserves in their arid north, a hydrogen rush is already underway in their south.

In this context, the Magellan Strait is set to come back to the mainstream as a strategic maritime chokepoint taking into account new international trade flows will emerge on the map of global energy shipping lanes. Tierra del Fuego offers Argentina and Chile the possibility for the production and export of green hydrogen thanks to its strong winds. In fact, this clean fuel could be a game changer for achieving the Paris Agreement goal of decarbonisation of the planet by 2050 without compromising industrial growth and social development.

In 2020, Chile published its National Green Hydrogen Strategy and in 2021 the government estimated that 13 percent of the world’s green hydrogen could eventually be produced using wind energy from its Magallanes region and Chile’s Antarctic claim, amounting to 126 GW. On the Argentine side, the Province of Tierra del Fuego and MMEX Resources Corporation announced last year the investment of US$ 500 million for the construction of a wind farm of up to 300 MW and an electrolysis plant that will allow obtaining more than 55 tons of green hydrogen per day in the city of Río Grande.

In geopolitical terms, despite being a jump-off point to Antarctica, there is no need to wait until 2048 when any of the Consultive Parties could call for the review of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty to appreciate the relevance of these latitudes.

In October this year, the result of the presidential election in Argentina will somehow determine relations between neighbouring countries in Tierra del Fuego and the involvement of extra-regional actors in the area. And while it is hard to know what will be the place of geopolitics amid the economic crisis for the president-elect given Argentina’s position as Major Non-NATO Ally and its ties with China as part of the Belt and Road Initiative, Chile’s reaction to Argentina’s behaviour and the limits of president Boric’s support to the Argentinean claim over Malvinas will certainly depend on this. In the meantime, in light of the opportunities, investments in the Magellan Strait and the island of Tierra del Fuego will rise where political risk allows to do so and what’s more, China and the US will likely try to subvert the status quo of the area before it becomes their Achilles heel.