I still maintain that one of the problems with Peronism, no matter which moment in time you decide is "real" peronism, is that the deal that was made between old money, labor unions, the church and the military, is still basically how things are decided. The church, I suppose, has much less power than it did, but the old money families have always had a disproportionate say.
Hence, the statement "argentina is not competitve" when referring to exports, is received belief, but not true. Argentina is not competitive except where the powers that be insist they be allowed to compete.
For instance wine, olive oil, and agricultural products are allowed to export at competitive prices, because the wealthy own those producers. But small PYME type industries have barrier after barrier to export.
I know several small businesses in Argentina who have at various times done well exporting- and the barriers have never been price, or quality, or design- they have always been Argentine government friction on duties, export fees, shipping logistics, and so on. It would be easy enough for the government to still prevent cheap chinese imports IN, but encourage exports OUT. But they dont. The financial system is crippled and outmoded, and many of the results are not doing the slightest to capture unpaid taxes, stop capital flight, or end corruption, but they do make it impossible for Argentine PYMEs to export.
The government should be focusing on Value Added manufacturing, rather than taxing raw material exports. It should be hosting trade expos abroad, and setting up a common Argentine Amazon shipping and distribution hub in, say, New Jersey or Miami- where all small PYMEs can easily export in bulk and one shipping center will sell to the entire USA thru Amazon and Ebay. It would be a bargain, compared to the export income, the jobs, and the general boost to the argentine economy.
There are several sectors that Argentina is very competitive in- textiles, clothing, shoes, leather goods, furniture, jewelry, small scale industrial design housewares- I know people in many of them who have against all odds, exported and made money. But always its an uphill climb, because of Argentine Government hurdles. Thats stupid, and, as I mentioned earlier, those hurdles are far lower for wine or fruits or other products that benefit oligarchs, but employ fewer at lower wages in the provincias.