Anclao en B'Aires

The fires went on burning for a couple of weeks. Strangely, the task of putting them out seemed not to be very high on anyone's agenda. Instead, they were deployed by the goverment as evidence of Agro's malevolence and greediness. According to this view, the farmers set the fires intentionally, as part of their disagreement with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who (along with the majority of the country's population) currently lives downwind. Agro's uncanny ability to enlist the cooperation of the sun and the wind was taken by the government and its supporters as further proof of "powerful interests" pulling the strings, no doubt from somewhere up north. Finally it rained, putting the fires out and fueling hopeful speculation about a rift (una interna) between the elements.

The smoke may have disappeared, but almost three months after the now-ex Minister of the Economy started all of this by announcing yet another tax increase on exports of soy, this crisis shows every sign of just gathering steam. What began as what in any other country would've been an easily-resolved dispute over agricultural policy has turned into a full-blown national donnybrook. As the smoke managed to penetrate everywhere, so has this latest example of Argentina's astounding talent for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Argentina, one of the world's top-three soy producers has ceased exports precisely at the moment of greatest international demand. Ships that should've long since unloaded in Shanghai are still anchored in B'Aires or Rosario or Bahia Blanca, meters running. This week, truckers in the thousands began parking their rigs on major highways to protest the fact that the farmers in the hundreds of thousands have been parking their tractors alongside major highways, intercepting any trucks carrying grain for export. The new President, insecure, paranoid, and pig-headed, would rather watch the country go up in flames than run the risk of being seen as having given in to the farmers, who are equally intransigent. Problem is, while their approval ratings have gone up, hers have plummeted, right alongside the country's bond ratings. Inflation is way up. Whatever (relatively minor) gains that might've been gotten from those nine percentage points have long since been erased. Meanwhile, throughout the country, link after link in the economic chain is being snapped. The whole thing is just stunning. How did it come to this? How is it possible that Argentina looks about to tear itself apart again?