How Argentina Could Still Convert to the Dollar
If incoming President Javier Milei can tolerate a little chaos — or a lot — then the greenback could still replace the peso.
Could dollarization still work?
Photographer: Luis Robayo/AFP
Javier Milei was elected president of Argentina on the strength of a radical promise: that he would replace the highly inflationary Argentine peso with the stable US dollar. Yet the latest reports suggest that such dollarization is now a “medium-term” goal, rather than an immediate priority, and dollarization is not on the official agenda of Milei’s meetings this week with the International Monetary Fund and members of Joe Biden’s administration.
US dollars are already ubiquitous in Argentina, as any visitor can attest. So why should dollarization be so difficult? Because — as even those of us who favor the policy have to admit — no matter how it happens, if it does, it will be messy.