On 20 May, Bolivia’s president Rodrigo Paz Pereira, who was elected in November 2025, announced a ministerial reshuffle in response to pressure from protesters calling on him to resign. For weeks, demonstrations against price hikes and fuel shortages have brought together miners’ associations, farming organisations and the activist networks that remain loyal to the former leftist president Evo Morales following his clash with the leadership of the Movement for Socialism (MAS). After Gustavo Petro made comments interpreted as being in support of Morales, La Paz expelled the Colombian ambassador.

Gas revenues have financed MAS’s redistributive policies for more than 20 years. While exports to Brazil and Argentina bolstered public finances, increased trade and a growing informal economy reconfigured the social hierarchy, especially in cities. Now this model, built in the early 2000s, has been weakened by a decline in gas exports, and fuel shortages have revealed its limits.

Will lithium enable Bolivia to extend its cycle of extraction? The country doesn’t have much in the way of refining capacity, industrial infrastructure or processing technologies. Chinese companies dominate this value chain at the very moment when Washington is seeking to regain a foothold in the region. And since coming to power, Paz has reestablished ties with the US, relaunched cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and sent out friendly signals to foreign investors.

In this way Bolivia’s crisis transcends national borders. It reflects the exhaustion of a compromise made by Latin American liberals, based on the exploitation of raw materials, at a time when these resources are once again becoming central in the rivalry between Beijing and Washington.