Milei’s 48-Hour Tariff Pause Spurs Record Surge in Crop Exports

Argentine President Javier Milei’s brief pause on crop export tariffs last week, implemented to shore up the nation’s finances, sparked the biggest wave of bookings on record. Commodity traders and farmers are now grappling with the fallout.

Milei’s gambit to boost the supply of dollars on the foreign-exchange market quickly attracted about $7 billion in scheduled shipments as exporters — including commodity trading houses Bunge Global SA, Cargill Inc. and Louis Dreyfus Co. — seized the moment.

Within 48 hours, the tariffs were back in force, including levies of about 25% on soy shipments and around 10% on ...