Argentina Farmers Strike: Refusing to Foot the Bill for the Kirchners' Populist Politics


 

Publication Date: May 2008

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): James M. Roberts

Research Area: Economics; Politics

Keywords: Argentine farmers; Latin American; soybeans; Kirchner

Type: Brief

Coverage: Argentina

Abstract:

Peronists Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the presidential couple who have ruled Argentina since 2003, have exploited record-high commodity prices to finance their leftist-populist policies. Keeping the peso artificially low, they have overheated the economy and stoked exports and inflation, heavily taxing the former and attempting to conceal the latter.