week I was in New York, on the 15th floor of JP Morgan's new tower on Park Avenue, listening to Javier Milei inaugurate Argentina Week before more than 300 investors, bankers, and CEOs. Jamie Dimon, the most powerful man on Wall Street, introduced him personally and said something he doesn't say about just anyone: " This President has very strong convictions about how to fix a country ." The room was so full that people were watching on screens in adjacent rooms. The most electrifying moment came when Milei looked at Santiago Bausili, president of the Central Bank, sitting in the audience, and said to him: "Get ready, Santiago, because you're going to be rolling in dollars." Then he added, half-jokingly, half-seriously: "Please don't let it go to inflation. Be careful how you buy them."
Where does this flood of dollars that Milei promises come from? The president himself explained it: oil, gas, nuclear energy, mining, agriculture, data centers, the knowledge economy. It's a broad menu. But what I want to argue here is that there's a factor that multiplies everything else, and few are grasping its magnitude: geopolitics. The war between the United States, Israel, and Iran has just made Argentina one of the most secure suppliers of energy, food, and minerals on the planet. And that security comes at a price, a price the world is going to pay.
Let's get to the facts. On February 28, the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killed Khamenei, and unleashed a war that has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, the bottleneck through which 20% of the world's oil and gas passes . Tanker traffic plummeted to zero. Brent crude jumped from $71 to nearly $120 in a matter of days and remains above $100 today. Thirty countries have released 400 million barrels from strategic reserves in the largest coordinated operation in history, and yet the International Energy Agency acknowledges that this barely covers 20 days of the lost flow. Qatar declared force majeure on all its gas contracts. South Korea warned that it had nine days' worth of LNG left. Japan, which receives 95% of its crude oil through Hormuz, pleaded for help. Bob McNally, a former Bush advisor, put it bluntly: we are witnessing the collapse of one of the fundamental assumptions of the global economy .
Meanwhile, in Patagonia, Vaca Muerta is breaking records . In January 2026, it produced 610,715 barrels of shale oil per day , 32% more than the previous year. The formation holds 16 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 308 trillion cubic feet of gas: the world's fourth-largest shale oil reserve and second-largest shale gas reserve . Its breakeven point is $45 per barrel. With Brent crude above $100, each barrel exported is practically free money. And crucially, this oil is shipped out through the South Atlantic. It doesn't pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, or anywhere else where missiles are currently being launched. YPF is leading a consortium to build a 437-kilometer pipeline to a supertanker terminal on the Atlantic coast, expected to be operational by the end of this year, with the capacity to scale up to 1.5 million barrels per day by 2030. Energy exports will generate some $18 billion this year. That's some of the money Bausili is going to be raking in.
But it's not just oil. A third of the world's fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and urea has already jumped from $475 to $680 per ton. Countries that depend on fertilizers from the Gulf are going to have trouble planting. Argentina, on the other hand, produces its own food and projects a record 105 million tons of grain exports this season. It is the world's leading exporter of soybean oil and meal and the third-largest exporter of corn. The Milei government permanently reduced export taxes, which improves profit margins and accelerates the inflow of foreign currency. More dollars pouring in.
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Then there's lithium. Argentine production grew by 66% in 2025 , the highest rate in the world. Rio Tinto invested $2.5 billion in Salta. JP Morgan projects that the price will rise by 43% in 2026. Total mining exports will exceed $5 billion this year. And Milei explicitly mentioned copper, lithium, gold, silver, rare earth minerals, and uranium projects in his speech as drivers of growth. More dollars.
And there's one factor that almost no one connects to geopolitics: data centers. Training artificial intelligence models consumes massive amounts of energy, and 2025 was a record year for investment in the sector, with $61 billion. OpenAI and Sur Energy signed a letter of intent to explore Stargate Argentina in Patagonia: up to 500 megawatts, a potential investment of $25 billion. The project isn't confirmed and may not materialize as currently planned. But that's almost beside the point. If it's not OpenAI, it will be someone else, because the underlying logic is irresistible. Argentina has abundant, cheap, and reliable energy . It has a cold climate that reduces cooling costs. And above all, it has something that is priceless today: it's outside all the geopolitical hotspots of the planet. The major data centers are currently located in the United States (at war), Europe (where gas prices doubled in 48 hours), and Asia (the continent most affected by the Strait of Hormuz). Some major global operator will want to have computing power in a place where they can't have their power cut off or a missile launched against them. That place is Argentina.
I've been saying since the war in Ukraine that Argentina is one of the best refuges on the planet in the event of a global war . Few listened. I didn't just stick to theory: along with five friends, all tech entrepreneurs, I bought a 32,000-hectare property in Mendoza called Wamani. Not only because it's one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, but also as a potential refuge in case of a third world war. Now that the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the reasoning should be obvious: there are very few places in the world that simultaneously produce energy, food, and strategic minerals, export them via safe maritime routes, and are thousands of kilometers away from any armed conflict. Argentina is the most complete example. Its distance from war is measured in dollars per barrel, in marine insurance premiums, in continuity of supply, and in the confidence of those who invest long-term."
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globetrot
Registered
Yesterday at 6:31 PM
#4
In the extreme example of nuclear war I think we'd be safer for a while but not forever. Maybe if we buried into the Andes? But yeah, its safer living down here than most places given the food and water sources and the distance from nuclear fallout.
FrankPintor
www.batimes.com.ar
