Peronism on the Potomac

"When the populist strongman Juan Perón ran Argentina's economy from his presidential palace in the mid-20th century-personally deciding which companies received favors, which industries got nationalized or protected, and which businessmen profited from state largesse-economists warned that the experiment would end badly. They were right. Over decades of rule by Perón and his successors, a country that had once been among the world's wealthiest nations devolved into a global laughingstock, with uncontrollable inflation, routine fiscal crises, rampant corruption, and crippling poverty."

"President Donald Trump seems to have misunderstood the lesson. His second term has begun to follow the Peronist playbook of import substitution, emergency declarations, personal dealmaking, fiscal and monetary recklessness, and unprecedented government control over private enterprise. And, as with Argentina's Peronism, much of U.S. economic policy making runs directly through the president himself. Trump's tendency toward Peronist policy is strongest on trade."

Juan Perón centralized economic power, personally allocating favors, nationalizing industries, and enabling businessmen to profit from state largesse, which economists warned would fail. Decades of Perónist rule transformed Argentina from one of the world's richest countries into a global pariah marked by uncontrollable inflation, fiscal crises, corruption, and poverty. Peronist import-substitution policies used tariffs, quotas, subsidies, and localization mandates to foster domestic production, but created uncompetitive industries with high costs, bloated finances, and cronyism while undermining the competitive agricultural sector. Consumers faced higher prices, shortages, and declining living standards. Similar policymaking patterns have emerged in the United States under President Donald Trump.

Read at The Atlantic