What Argentina did wrong was to peg its currency to the USD in a time when the USD was very strong - but Argentina was not particularly. As a result its neighbours, who were not so burdened and let their currency drop against the $US, outcompeted it on every front. It was a repeat of the 1970s and Mexico more recently - by the time Argentina woke up to what was going on capital was moving out of the country at a huge rate and it had a BoP crisis. It was forced to devalue and because everyone was holding US denominated debt, their businesses went bust, banks closed and everyone lost their life savings etc just like the Asia Crisis.
So you can blame the Argentinian govt for being thick or the world economic system for artificially inflating the $US.
