Deep in Argentina’s rust belt, the decades of duress that have hollowed out the steelmaking port town of Villa Constitucion are everywhere on display.
Next to fields strewn with scrap metal, the Parana River has become so shallow after years of drought that ships run aground and fishermen are left idle. Drug violence from nearby Rosario has crept closer. And the hulking steel plants that once offered a sense of surety instead symbolize Argentina’s grueling decline, driven by excessive costs, outdated laws and pendulum-swing politics.
“Getting a stable job here is now a pipe ...