This is a sign of a world where energy has become a weapon again, and where high prices, inflation, and instability are no longer exceptions. Argentina can benefit as a producer, but suffer as a fragile economy and an importer of stability. It also faces a key strategic decision that not everyone wants to see: to turn this crisis into an opportunity for transformation or remain trapped in total war. The world is for the first time teaching us how to fish in crises; let us not lose this opportunity. The impact of this on Argentina involves the following topics: Relative advantage: Agro-exporting power, with the ability to capture high international prices. Internal risks: Increased cost of imported inputs. Tension between international and domestic prices. Greater distributive conflict. Impact on logistics costs due to the importer nature of gasoline and diesel fuel at commodity prices, despite being a net exporter of crude oil, which does not compensate for the growth in refining margins. The country earns dollars but loses social stability without decoupling mechanisms. Scenarios for Argentina. Scenario A – Inertial. It takes advantage of high prices to generate short-term foreign exchange. It maintains fossil fuel dependence and structural inflation. High vulnerability to future crises. Scenario B – Strategic. It uses the context to: consolidate Vaca Muerta as a bridge, invest in the energy transition, reduce exposure to external shocks, improve competitiveness via tax reduction, and take advantage of the export parity cost of energy. Where does Argentina stand in this new scenario? Argentina holds an ambivalent position: Opportunity: With Vaca Muerta, Argentina is one of the few emerging countries with the capacity to increase non-conventional oil and gas production. A sustained high Brent price improves the energy trade balance, fiscal revenues, and the attractiveness of upstream investments. Structural limit: Lack of infrastructure for massive export (pipelines, LNG). Macroeconomic constraints: capital controls, high country risk, need for immediate foreign currency. Technological and financial dependence on the outside. At this point, Argentina resembles a potential beneficiary more than a full winner of the crisis, as it appears with insufficient internal infrastructure for both the domestic and external markets. Imported inflation and internal tension. It can be asserted that energy inflation is no longer transient but structural. For Argentina, this means: Increase in the cost of: fuels, transport, fertilizers (direct impact on food). Additional pressure on: energy subsidies, tariffs, purchasing power. Even as a producer, Argentina suffers from international prices, because fuels and gas are set at export parity values, and the internalization of these prices will negatively impact the government's plan to reduce inflation to zero due to the new distortion in relative prices. Food security and fertilizers. A key point is the relationship between energy, fertilizers, and food. Geopolitical implications for Argentina. A more fragmented and less stable world. The Iranian doctrine shows that it is not necessary to defeat a military power to condition it: it is enough to disrupt critical flows. For Argentina, this opens a window: Use fossil fuel rent to: strengthen the electrical infrastructure, strengthen the heavy-load railway infrastructure, develop renewables, and reduce future external vulnerability. promote added value of raw materials outside the metropolitan area, thus promoting internal migration. reduce distorting taxes such as IB or provincial VAT programs or permanent innovation to have competitiveness. This implies abandoning the systemic risk of the Argentine rentier and appropriator economy with its classic pattern exercised in the last 70 years: CAPTURE RENT WITHOUT STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION. Conclusion. The war in Iran is not a distant or circumstantial event for Argentina. More expensive and riskier world trade, that is the bet where the culture of death means the blessing of Allah and the end of suffering on earth, in addition to being a people prepared with dormant cells everywhere. Less financial predictability. Greater importance of flexible and pragmatic alliances. Strategic window: energy and transition. The war shows that these crises can accelerate the energy transition in countries seeking to reduce their fossil fuel dependence for security reasons, not just climate ones.
