The Donald Trump administration’s newly released national security strategy marks a decisive turn in US foreign policy. It distances Washington from Europe, tacitly concedes Russian and Chinese zones of influence and reasserts Latin America as an area of strategic US concern.
But this return to hemispheric focus risks repeating a familiar mistake: overestimating US leverage while underestimating the ramifications of economic fragility of the countries it hopes to influence.
Nowhere is this clearer than in Argentina.
Argentina continues to experience precarious economic conditions despite recent aid from Washington and the International Monetary Fund. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s approval of a US$20-billion currency swap may have provided temporary aid but it will not address the root cause of its long standing economic instability.
If the United States wants credible democratic allies in the Southern Cone, it must demand that countries like Argentina undertake something they have long avoided: building a durable plan of national consensus that is capable of surviving the alternation between its democratically elected governments.
I write from a perspective shaped by both continents. Born in the United States, I was raised in Argentina from infancy, studied business at Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE) in Buenos Aires and later worked as a corporate executive. No matter the government in power, I watched as foreign loans and emergency assistance – Western or otherwise – failed because Argentina’s political factions could not agree on what kind of economy they wanted to build.
Recently I became an Argentine citizen and in 2027 I will vote for the first time. I hope to support not another short-lived experiment but a project containing agreed upon national policies designed to outlast the politicians who launch it.
Argentina’s potential is vast. Few countries combine world-class agriculture, critical minerals, large energy reserves, scientific capacity, industrial know-how, and a highly educated workforce. With a coherent, long-term economic strategy, Argentina could double its production within many sectors of its economy, expand its exports dramatically, and rebuild its middle class.
It could do this within 16 years; within four presidential terms. But this requires two fundamental shifts.
First, the United States must abandon its reliance on financial rescues.
For 40 years, Washington, Brussels, and international lenders have extended short-term liquidity without demanding political reforms that could ensure long-term stability. These interventions not only failed – they often made matters worse.
Economist Steve H. Hanke from Johns Hopkins University estimates that nearly 75 percent of the foreign aid sent to Argentina since the mid-1980s flowed back out of the country within weeks or months. These funds did not modernise infrastructure, expand industrial capacity, or improve competitiveness. They deepened debt and undermined public confidence.
China, meanwhile, adopted a strategy built on permanence. Through long-horizon investments in energy, mining, logistics, and critical infrastructure, Beijing is securing a structural presence in Argentina.
The United States cannot counter this trend with bailouts that evaporate in months. If Washington wants to compete in the region, it must demand a missing ingredient in Argentina’s history and political world: a national agreement that is built to last.
Second, Argentina must produce its own internal consensus.
No level of foreign support can replace a sustainable pact between Argentina’s two dominant ideological factions: its free-market globalists and its nationalist-industrial protectionists.
Each claims a monopoly on truth yet neither can develop the economy sustainably alone. Their alternating governments have resulted in constant policy swings leading to erosion of investor trust and economic development.
The 2027 presidential elections offer Argentina a narrow opportunity to build a 16-year national development plan before improvised, dogmatic or personality oriented candidates take the lead. But the initiative must come from civil society, not from political leaders alone. And it must arrive soon.
Three pragmatic steps could launch a consensus-oriented negotiation in 2026.
First, because no political figure enjoys broad legitimacy, the effort should originate within a civic leadership group that need not be large. Civil society shaped the democratic transition from military rule in the 1980s; it can again shape the country’s next 16 years. Argentina possesses high-calibre leaders capable of organising a process of national consensus. If they dare take the lead – for love of country – and do so professionally, the majority of Argentines will gladly support it.
Second, the process of dialogue must be strictly designed. As a clinical psychologist familiar with Argentine culture, I believe structured listening rules, non-violent communication principles and political mediation practices that have been successful in other parts of the world are required to foster respect, ideological flexibility and the creativity that the negotiations will require. The country possesses top quality professionals capable of designing a dialogue process of this nature.
Third, open-minded politicians and experts could negotiate a robust 16-year plan addressing infrastructure, industry, energy, agriculture, critical minerals, water and fisheries management, technology, education – and produce stable macroeconomic rules governing currency, debt, fiscal frameworks, banking and more.
Without an internal national consensus, assistance from the west is futile. With it, Argentina could become a success story once again. Yet it all depends on whether Argentine civil society will take the lead or not.
by Norman Raimundo Bentson
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