The United States should not turn away from Latin America as many populist contingents, both Republican and Democratic, have suggested. Instead, we would be well served to model our economic policy off the experiences of an unlikely economic role model: Argentina.

For the last decade, the populist policies of the Kirchner regimes in Argentina led to inflation of over 40 percent, a painful recession, high unemployment and social unrest.

Worryingly, the four main economic policies that defined Argentina’s lost decade of populism have been adopted or are actively being considered in some form or other in Washington: protectionist trade policies, aggressively loose central bank policy, oppressive government regulations and a government spending spree.

First, protectionist policies in Argentina destroyed the very agricultural and manufacturing heartland they were intended to help. The aim was to become self-reliant on domestic production and penalize those who exported or imported goods. Soy export tariffs, for example, eventually reached 50 percent, terminally crippling the crown jewel of Argentina’s once thriving agricultural sector.