The news of ongoing negotiations on a trade agreement between Argentina and the United States has dominated the headlines of political and economic media in recent weeks. Promoted by its advocates as a historic opportunity to integrate Argentina more deeply into the world economy, the proposed trade pact is now the subject of scrutiny. Industry analysts and sectoral leaders express concerns that the agreement, rather than boosting the country’s exports, could bring more risks than benefits to the national industrial fabric.
This trade relationship is based on unequal terms. The expression refers to the inequality between two countries at different levels of industrial development, production capacities, and technological advancement.
Negotiating Asymmetries
Although no official statement has been made, the Argentine government announced the trade agreement between Argentina and the United States as an initiative that could be considered “historic.” Negotiators reportedly seek a deal involving mutual tariff cuts and preferential access to certain sectors. In theory, such an arrangement could diversify and increase Argentina’s exports of agricultural and energy products and provide a new opening for North American investors in infrastructure, logistics, and technology. However, delving deeper into the numbers and sectoral distribution, one can see that the relationship between Argentina and the United States unveils a scenario of competition rather than complementarity.
Argentina’s trade balance is illustrative in this regard. For the period up to August 2025, the main destinations for Argentine exports were Brazil (USD 8.186 billion), China (USD 5.173 billion), the United States (USD 4.696 billion), Chile (USD 4.429 billion), and India (USD 3.408 billion). Shipments to the U.S. were led by fuel and energy, crude oil, gold, aluminum, and hormones. In exchange, it buys from the United States refined petroleum and gas, vaccines, and polymers. The profile of these products shows not only a clear technological gap between the two economies but also more than a relationship of commercial complementarity. Argentina exports raw or semi-elaborated material to feed the U.S. productive process while importing manufactured goods with higher added value. It is a paradigmatic case of the old-fashioned dependency model in which industrialization and knowledge creation are concentrated in the more developed partner.
Industrial sectors
Argentina’s productive fabric also faces challenges with this trade agreement between Argentina and the United States. A significant portion of Argentina’s economy, especially the automotive, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and metal-mechanical industries, competes directly with its American counterparts. The United States has clear advantages in terms of production capacity, energy costs, and innovation.
The provinces of Buenos Aires (PBA) would be the most vulnerable in the event of a relaxation of tariff barriers, as they concentrate the country’s largest industrial belt. Buenos Aires is responsible for around a quarter of the national export basket of manufactured goods. These are predominantly transport equipment and auto parts, which are sold mostly to Mercosur markets. The opening of these sectors to direct competition from U.S. producers would put at risk tens of thousands of jobs, especially in municipalities linked to these factories and supplier chains. Argentine manufacturers of automobiles and auto parts, in particular, could lose competitiveness without the protection mechanisms currently in place within Mercosur. U.S. cars and spare parts are cheaper and technologically more advanced, which would displace Argentine producers and contribute to deindustrialization in a productive pole that underpins a large part of the national employment structure.
Mercosur Commitments
Mercosur, with which Argentina maintains a strong trade relationship, poses another set of challenges to the trade agreement between Argentina and the United States. As a customs union, Mercosur’s rules prevent members from signing bilateral free trade agreements on their own, without exceptions negotiated at the bloc level. Such a move could create diplomatic tensions within Mercosur, where past attempts by individual member states to sign external deals have been rebuffed.
The unequal negotiating position could also lead to the imposition of “asymmetric” conditions on the Argentine side. The U.S. free trade agreements include clauses on the protection of intellectual property, security of investments, dispute settlement mechanisms, and alignment of regulatory frameworks. This could limit Argentina’s policy autonomy and subject it to potential lawsuits under international arbitration rules. The inclusion of “sunset clauses” or “negative lists” (which would exempt sensitive sectors from liberalization) could, in theory, reduce the impact. However, the application and enforcement of these lists are often the subject of complex bureaucratic processes. Argentina’s negotiating leverage will be limited, and it may not be able to extract such guarantees.
Winners and Losers
Nonetheless, it would be overly simplistic to predict that everything that comes out of a trade agreement between Argentina and the United States would necessarily have a negative impact on the national economy. On the contrary, and as already mentioned, certain sectors could gain from an expansion in their access to the U.S. market. Argentina’s energy sector could be one of the great beneficiaries of a trade agreement between Argentina and the United States, with the opening of the U.S. market to liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, lithium, or biofuels. On the other hand, the agrifood industry could find better conditions for its products, such as soybean meal, corn, wine, or citrus.
Likewise, extractive industries, and especially lithium mining in the provinces of Jujuy, Salta, and Catamarca, could benefit from new U.S. investments due to Washington’s interest in diversifying the supply of minerals necessary for its green energy technologies. In the same way, biotechnology and renewable energy projects may also find a better scenario for financing if the agreement includes formulas to encourage capital flows and technology transfers. The benefits, however, are not distributed equally across the board. If in the primary sector there are gains to be expected, the secondary sector, and especially the services sector, risks being left in the shade. Such an agreement could polarize Argentina even more, accentuating internal economic asymmetries that separate an export-promoted and currency-rich geography from industrial provinces like Buenos Aires, closer to the real economy.
Strategic Safeguards
If Argentina wants to take advantage of the opportunities that a trade agreement between Argentina and the United States could provide, it will need to strategically secure certain conditions during the negotiation process. These include phased liberalization with gradual tariff reductions that give domestic industries time to adjust; explicit exclusion of sensitive sectors such as the automotive and pharmaceutical sectors from immediate liberalization; reciprocity guarantees on investments that require U.S. investments to enter to incorporate value into the local chain, not to substitute it; technology transfer mechanisms that promote joint ventures and research and development partnerships, not just simple import substitution; and clauses preventing social and ecological dumping by guaranteeing fair labor and sustainability practices.
Without such conditions, the agreement would only increase Argentina’s dependency on raw material exports and weaken its industrial capacity.
Friendship Agreement or Rivalry
In sum, the trade agreement between Argentina and the United States could be a gateway or a booby trap. On the one hand, if the process is well managed, it can diversify Argentina’s export basket, attract investment, and open a direct line of negotiation with the most powerful economy on the planet. On the other hand, a poorly structured agreement could deepen structural imbalances, weaken the country’s productive apparatus, and reduce its policy space. For Argentina, the key will be to negotiate its position as a sovereign state that defends its national interest, prioritizes productive development, and re-industrializes as a primary national objective and not as a short-term diplomatic or political objective. The risks of a poorly done agreement include the possibility of opening up the country to deindustrialization, massive job losses, and fiscal exposure to uncontrollable risks. A well-structured and strategically balanced agreement, on the other hand, could be a key step towards a long-awaited process of modernization and sustainable development. In short, whether the United States is a true strategic ally or a potential rival will be defined by Argentina and its ability to assert its economic interests, defend its industries, and demand reciprocity in the opening of markets and the exchange of knowledge. Much is at stake, and the outcome of these negotiations will shape Argentina’s future role in the international economic order for generations to come.