Since 2011, Argentine exports of goods have recorded an average annual contraction of 0.4%. In the same period, world trade grew at 2.2% and the Latin American regional median reached 2.4%.
As tempting as it has been in recent decades to blame global demand problems or adverse external conditions, it has always been endogenous factors that erode the country’s competitiveness. And they were always swept under the rug.
A recent PwC analysis quantifies what foreign trade operators have been pointing out for years: while the world and the region were expanding their trade flows, Argentina fell back 5% in the absolute value of exports. In the regional comparison, only Venezuela —amid an institutional collapse— and Colombia —affected by a 20% drop in the price of oil— showed worse performances.
Costa Rica more than doubled its exports with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.8%. Nicaragua (4.7%) and Mexico (4.5%) completed the podium of best performances. They are all models of commercial integration that capitalized on opportunities while Argentina was debating whether to open or close exports.
The exceptions that work
However, the aggregate data hides sectoral dynamics that deserve a finer reading. Because when restrictions are removed and logistical bottlenecks are resolved, the results are not long in coming.
The bovine meat sector is paradigmatic. Between 2006 and 2015, export quotas kept foreign sales artificially repressed. The elimination of these restrictions starting in 2015, plus the signing of health protocols that enabled the shipment of chilled and bone-in meat to China between 2018 and 2019, radically transformed the landscape.
Exports of frozen beef grew at a CAGR of 13.1%, with China currently absorbing 76% of the total. Lower domestic demand, on the other hand, increased the available exportable balance, consolidating this expansion.
The oil case
In the oil sector, the story is similar but with different players. For years, unconventional production in Vaca Muerta encountered physical barriers in saturated pipelines and unresponsive port terminals.
The reactivation of the Trasandino Pipeline (OTASA) to Chile, the expansion of Oldelval and the improvements at the Puerto Rosales facilities in Bahía Blanca unlocked the system. Result: 7.3% annual growth, with Chile receiving 37% of crude exports.
Corn, the other vertex
Corn completes this virtuous trio. The deregulation of the Export Operation Records (ROE) in 2015, the increase in planted area and the improvement in yields per hectare boosted foreign sales to 3.9% annually. Vietnam emerged as a key destination, representing almost 20% of grain exports, in a clear example of market diversification.
Lithium, although still marginal in the total exported (0.8%), exhibits explosive dynamics.
Exports of lithium carbonate —more than 90% of the complex— grew at a CAGR of 23.6%, positioning Argentina as a relevant actor in the global energy transition chain.
The persistent brakes
But not everything is growth, and setbacks also tell a story.
The soybean complex shows a clear rotation from beans to manufactured products: soybean oil grew 1.8% and pellets 0.8%, while beans fell 7.1%. This dynamic responds to multiple factors. The international price of beans fell 14% in the period, the differential export tax scheme favors the export of processed products, and Brazil doubled its soybean production while Argentina barely expanded it by 4%. Brazil, in short, captured most of the growth in global demand for beans, displacing Argentina from that segment.
The automotive sector shows a structural reconversion that failed to compensate for aggregate losses. Passenger vehicles fell 7% annually, while cargo vehicles grew 2.6%. The terminals concentrated investments on medium pick-ups with an export profile and regional scale, discontinuing the local production of sedans and hatchbacks. This specialization positioned Argentina as the fourth largest producer of medium pick-ups in the world in 2022, but the net balance of the sector remains negative.
Concentration as a symptom
This heterogeneous dynamic resulted in a greater concentration of the export basket. Since 1995, Argentina maintained more diversified exports than the regional average, with profiles similar to Australia and New Zealand. However, from 2012 onwards, a clear trend towards concentration is observed. In 2024, the top 10 products represent 58% of total exports, placing the country above the Latin American median and surpassing New Zealand, although still more diversified than Australia.
Concentration is not necessarily negative —Australia is proof that one can grow with a narrow export base— but it does reduce resilience to specific product or market shocks. In a country with chronic macroeconomic instability, that additional vulnerability is not minor.
The unfulfilled potential of services
On the knowledge services side, Argentina increased exports at a CAGR of 3% since 2011. A performance superior to that of goods, but substantially below the global growth of 6.7% and the Latin American median of 4.1%.
In absolute terms, Argentina remains among the largest regional exporters with US$ 9600 million, behind Brazil and Mexico. In relation to GDP, the sector represents 1.5%, above Brazil (1.4%), Mexico (0.9%) and Colombia (1.4%). But the comparison with the cases of strong regional expansion is telling: Uruguay multiplied its knowledge services exports by five, and Costa Rica and El Salvador by more than four. In these countries, the sector reaches significantly higher percentages of GDP: 9.7% in Costa Rica, 4.8% in Uruguay and 2.4% in El Salvador.
Argentina has clear competitive advantages: skilled human capital, time zone alignment with North America, command of English in technical segments, competitive labor costs in dollars.
However, growth is slow, erratic, conditioned by exchange rate volatility and the absence of regulatory predictability.
The strategic window we might be missing
The international situation opens up opportunities that do not appear often.
The energy transition drives the demand for critical minerals and natural gas as a backup fuel. The reconfiguration of global value chains is advancing through nearshoring and friendshoring strategies. The demand for food continues to expand, and digital services are in a full growth phase.
Argentina can contribute lithium, a copper portfolio in development, gold, unconventional gas and oil, a competitive agro-industry, and talent in knowledge-based services. The tools are there. The external demand is too.
But capturing these opportunities requires more forceful efforts in macroeconomic stability and regulatory predictability. The cases of beef, oil, and corn demonstrate that lifting restrictions and resolving logistical bottlenecks generate rapid and sustained results. Knowledge services show that the potential exists, but its materialization is slow without a favorable environment.
From diagnosis to action
We are not unveiling mysteries, nor adding new analyses. There is no shortage of proposals or new discoveries of gunpowder.
The “Argentina Team” has historically relied on “savior individual talents.” In the face of success, they underestimate the role of constant effort, of the consistency that transcends administrations. When the talent is injured, or in the face of an adverse result from the situation, the approach is changed.
The regulatory framework must have the minimum flexibility to act in the face of true global catastrophes, not internal colds.
Logistical infrastructure must be measured in decades, not in years.
What is, in the end, comex
And foreign trade is not just another macroeconomic variable. It is the only proven genuine source of foreign exchange generation, technological transfer, and development of higher value-added activities.
If it is a variable for political or fiscal adjustment, it will continue to be a “fresh” player, a supporting actor. A spectator of a world that is going elsewhere.
We repeat the forgotten mantra to the point of exhaustion: the natural resources are there. The human capital is too. The external demand exists. There is no need to analyze more. It is necessary to act.
