Georgetown Americas Institute

On June 28, after several weeks of pressure in currency and bond markets, Luis Caputo, Argentina’s finance minister, uttered the words heard time and again in Latin America from many of his predecessors — I will not devalue. In 1981, José López Portillo, Mexico’s then president, made his famous claim that he was going to defend the Mexican peso like a dog. What followed was the start of Latin America’s debt crisis and lost decade.