Davos — Argentinian President Mauricio Macri has a blunt message for protectionist and populist-inclined governments: learn from us. "I invite them to visit Argentina and see what happens with an incredible country that adopted protectionism and isolation as a way of life," Macri said in an interview on Thursday. "It didn’t work. We only deepened our poverty problems." The rising threat of global trade wars is a major theme of talks at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos. Policy makers and economists are bristling over US President Donald Trump’s protectionist agenda. Trump is due to speak to the forum on Friday. When Macri was elected in 2015, he took over a country that was on a path to financial ruin after a decade of free-spending populist policies. After the country’s 2001 default, Argentina was frozen out of global capital markets for years. Former president Cristina Fernandez implemented currency controls, erected import barriers to protect domestic industry, ...
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