Argentina Goes Rogue Again

Since February, consumers and businesses in Argentina have found it increasingly hard to find various imported items—electrical equipment, certain prescription drugs, machinery parts, bananas, and salmon. The government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wants to reduce dependence on imports and encourage local industry and agriculture to fill the gap. The country recorded a $356  million current account deficit in the fourth quarter. Since a healthy trade surplus is a pillar of Argentina’s economic model, policy makers want to get back in the black as fast as possible. Trade considerations were behind the government’s move on April  16 to wrest control of YPF, a local oil producer, from the hands of Spain’s Repsol YPF. Fernández figures the Argentines can coax more oil from the fields than the Spanish, thus cutting the bill for imported oil.

This cut-imports-at-all-costs ­campaign has triggered a backlash. The government announced in late March that all foreign publications entering Argentina would be held at Ezeiza International Airport outside Buenos Aires. The topic hashtag #LiberenLosLibros (“free the books”) was widely used on Twitter.