Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center Deputy Director Jason Marczak cowrites for Foreign Policy on how Argentina’s role in the global economy is likely to shift during the new Macri administration:
On Dec. 10, Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri entered the Casa Rosada with a mandate to revive a sputtering economy and take the country in a new direction. The agenda is long, including revitalizing the export sector, controlling inflation, and bringing in foreign direct investment. After 12 years of left-leaning rule by first Néstor and then Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Macri seeks to move South America’s second-largest economy from an inward-looking, clientelistic state to an open, internationalist one. This long-overdue shift could open a new flood of trade and foreign direct investment — but it could also set the stage for a larger shift.
If things go as planned and new life is injected into the economy, the result would be a win for the Argentine people. But it would also be a larger win for the rules-based approach to global economic governance. A Macri presidency, and the house cleaning expected to come with it, may be a catalyst for a broader update in international commerce that goes far beyond its own borders — a realignment of key emerging economies toward the high-standard trade policies being pursued by the United States in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).