SINCE ITSfounding by landowners in 1866, the Rural Society of Argentina—motto, “To Cultivate the Soil is to Serve the Nation”—has been a potent ally for governments of the right and a daunting foe for the left. The society’s campus in Buenos Aires, home to a big annual agricultural fair, dominates a city block in the heart of the capital. Hosting The Telegram for a chat about geopolitics, society officers deplore decades of economic mismanagement by populist left-leaning governments, which caused inflation to soar and the Argentine currency to sink. On the way out, they show him some of the society’s historic treasures, including a carved armchair used by the late Pope John Paul II.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Why China is hard to beat in Latin America”
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