Resource nationalism was supposed to be a throwback, a discredited school of economics that failed the governments that embraced it. Apparently, Argentine President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner never got the memo.
Instead, she decided in mid-April to seize a majority stake in one of her country's leading energy producers Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales (YPF), a move that threatens not only to trigger an economic war with some of her country's biggest trade partners, but also could well undermine the primary objective of the move itself: the revitalization of Argentina's fraying energy infrastructure.
Founded in 1922 by the Argentine government, YPF was the world's first vertically integrated oil company and Argentina's leading oil and gas concern. The company was privatized in 1993 as part of the privatization orthodoxy that spread after the end of the Cold War and the triumph of market-oriented liberalism. In 1999, the Spanish firm Repsol bought a majority share.