Disclaimer: I worked for almost a decade at the Techint Group, in global corporate communications. I know the company and its leadership well. I witnessed first-hand their global and regional expansion, their drive to compete in the world’s most demanding markets and the long-term vision of a family business turned into a world-class manufacturing giant.
President Javier Milei’s personal attack on Techint Group leader Paolo Rocca is, to say the least, silly and unnecessary. The storyline of the Indian steel pipe imports saga was one exclusively involving private-sector players: a private consortium created to export Vaca Muerta gas in LNG form, led by an Argentine company, Alejandro Bulgheroni’s Pan American Energy (PAE), organised a tender and awarded it to the best bidder, in this case an Indian company that uses Chinese steel as input.
There was no government intervention there, except because the project – called Southern Energy – operates under the Milei administration’s signature investment benefits programme, RIGI, which grants tax breaks, special access to the FX market and three decades of fiscal stability to large investors. But even with that, Milei could have stayed out of the fray, which ultimately involves two Argentine business moguls, Rocca and Bulgheroni, both figures with Italian roots. Does the fact that the head of state’s sister, Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei is good friends with Bulgheroni’s wife Bettina (now head of the CICYP business association), have anything to do with Milei’s decision to lash out at Rocca on social media, calling him “Mr. Petty Scrap Dealer”? Only the Milei siblings know that.
Milei was about to complete a perfect January. The Central Bank has started a much-delayed programme to accumulate international reserves, bagging more than US$1 billion in the month, and, as a result, Argentina’s country risk ratings have gone down below 500 basis points for the first time in almost eight years. If the economic programme continues along on this trajectory, and there are no black swans in the global economy, Economy Minister Luis Caputo could tap international voluntary markets later (or sooner) this year to roll over debt payments at a reasonable interest rate. This week Córdoba Province issued debt on Wall Street (US$800 million) at 8.75 percent, and Ecuador went back to the markets after seven years to get US$4 billion at an interest rate of nine percent. These are good precedents for Milei, as he eyes the year’s next big payment of US$4.5 billion in July.
Milei could continue to ride the wave of optimism of this second political honeymoon he is enjoying, which had him touring the coastal city of Mar del Plata this week to cheering crowds. But he could not hold his tongue and called out one of the country’s top business leaders. This could be good political tactics, but it is poor strategy. The larger Argentine public does not know much of Rocca; he only speaks once or twice in public a year here and to a business crowd and some of his peers may even dislike him because of a fairly monopolistic approach to the domestic steel business. Still, he provides direct quality jobs to almost 20,000 Argentines, which means almost everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody who works at Techint. Screaming that the company should go bankrupt because its quotation was 40 percent higher than an Indian firm’s is wonky politics for a president.
Since Milei took office in December 2023, Argentina’s manufacturing sector has lost 55,000 jobs – that’s two Techints. Milei will have to reverse that, or at least find suitable employment in other sectors for those people – and others who could lose their jobs next. Unemployment data is not going up (6.6 percent in the latest report for Q3 2025) because the process is only just starting and because people who lose their formal jobs immediately download delivery or ride-sharing service apps to continue to have a revenue stream: technically, they are employed. For Argentina to be a developed country – Ireland or Norway, rather than Nigeria – it should have many more Techints, not fewer.
The road leading in either of those directions is built day by day, policy after policy. International investors will be happy that, for once, the national manufacturing champion will not walk away with murderous pricing, but the underlying question is where that leads the country – and the Milei government – in the longer term. What would you choose between a Rocca and a hard place?
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