Chile, Panama, Argentina are pretty good in comparison to many other countries. Also if you take into account the last 300 years, well... not only Argentina was richer than the USA 100 years ago but Venezuela (yes, Venezuela) was in better economic shape than, for example Spain, for decades during the XX century.
There's no way that Argentina was richer than the US in 1917, when American manufacturers and bankers were busily sucking up the wealth of the Entente powers by supplying war materiel and loans.
Not even ten years ago, Venezuela was the darling of the NY Times, among others, under Chavez. Of course, gasoline was close to $4 a gallon then.
Also, Panama would still be a malarial pesthole without the Canal.
Reading up on the various canal schemes in different regions of that era and the French and then American efforts to build the Canal is very interesting.
Peruvian and Mexican metals kept them viable for a while, but that ran out long ago. Coke has barely filled the void, thanks to US prohibition.