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What will China do when Argentina defaults on its debt again and this time much of it is owed to China?
Sieze ports and railroads and other important infastructure? Isn't that their MO?
Argentina has very limited credibility to offer concessions to anyone. Even its people have lost faith, e.g. in its currency. It is a worthless sinkhole for development aid, taking billions from the IMF and refusing to implement reforms:
https://www.marketplace.org/2023/06/02/how-argentinas-economy-crumbled/
For almost 100 years, Argentina has moved between left-wing populist stupidity and right-wing populist incompetence. China can act as a predatory lender, and like other predatory lenders, take advantage of their borrowers' lack of alternatives. The only sensible reason for China to invest in Argentina is to milk Argentina's geographic and political (UN vote etc.) resources dry.
I've had a sort of secondary theory about the Argentinian economy for a while that he seems to agree with, that Argentinians are so traumatized by past crises that they'll bank run at the slightest sign things are weakening, making their currency way more fragile to any shock than a normal county's would be. Macri did implement reforms after all, he cut quotas, tariffs, currency controls, FDI restrictions, price controls, and subsidies, and things did get better for a while, then everyone freaked out the moment the US raised interest rates and things deteriorated again.
He implemented some reforms, but the overall situation was still awful in 2016-2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Argentina#Data
Also, the inflation target was raised by 5%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/28D
I think you slightly underplay the signs of modest recovery before the Crisis of 2018 - GDP per capita and growth improved in 2017, the default ended, access to international capital markets was restored, and poverty rates started to fall again to their lowest levels since the 90s. This was enough of a clear improvement that it helped Cambiemos sweep the 2017 elections.
But I don't disagree, that's really the exact point I'm making - Marci actually did implement pretty wide ranging reforms and was barely able to dent their overall endemic instability. His administration's weak point was obviously siding with the Treasury over the Central Bank on inflation, but Frente de Todos is hitting it with 97% interest rates currently and it's still not making a difference.
It is of course true that inflation is larger and more complex than interest rates alone, but Argentina also raised reserve requirements, implemented currency controls, and are taking steps to reduce the money stock. They're doing this badly (ie via sterilization because they're too iliquid for normal open market operations) but my point isn't that they're doing a good job addressing the crisis, just that the Central Bank is implementing the policy their predecessors were criticized for not using.
As an aside, doesn't Friedman's own argument about the 70s only makes sense if you expect inflation to respond immediately to raising rates, which he didn't? The outcome is consistent if you expect there to be lags.
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