Trump's corollary to the Monroe Doctrine is focused on continued exploitation of Latin America's natural resources
By Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire
December 24, 2025
On December 18, Trump's Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, welcomed the return of neoliberal "reform" in Bolivia after nearly two decades of socialist rule. "We applaud President [Rodrigo] Paz's historic efforts to open Bolivia to the world by committing to meaningful reforms to attract international investment," Rubio said in a statement. "U.S. government officials are currently in Bolivia seeking to facilitate investments that will foster prosperity for both our nations."
The "prosperity" envisioned by Rubio will benefit private foreign investors. The land-locked Andean country is rich in natural resources. Bolivia has the world's largest identified lithium reserves, primarily in the Salar de Uyuni salt flat. Rare earth mineral deposits, namely anthanum and neodymium, are located in the Cochabamba and Santa Cruz regions. Other minerals include silver, gold, tungsten, copper, iron ore, bismuth, gypsum, zinc, antimony, and gemstones. Natural gas represents the country's most valuable export, concentrated in the eastern departments of Tarija and Santa Cruz.
In 2024, the State Department warned investors to "remain cautious about investing in Bolivia" due to the Movement Towards Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo) government of President Luis Arce and its desire to nationalize Bolivia's natural resources. "There is no significant foreign direct investment from the United States in Bolivia, and there are no specific incentives to encourage U.S. Investment," according to the 2024 State Department Investment Climate Statement.
This changed when Rodrigo Paz, the candidate for president of the Christian Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano), won a run-off election against former president Jorge Quiroga in October. Rodrigo Paz is the son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora. He promised to institute "free-market reforms" and restoration of ties with the United States and other "trading partners," particularly in regard to Bolivia's lithium and rare earth reserves. In a move that undoubtedly pleases the United States, the Paz government plans to move away from its previous relationship with China.
In addition, Paz secured a $3.1 billion loan from the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), a multilateral financial institution composed of fourteen private banks. CAF has embraced the United Nations' 2030 Agenda, formerly known as Agenda 21. Critics argue the agenda "will only benefit the economic elite and entrench their power," and, writes Whitney Webb, will also "transform the global financial system by fusing with institutions like the World Bank and using them to further erode national sovereignty in the developing world."
Rodrigo Paz: WTO Insider
The administration of Rodrigo Paz Pereira is comprised of ministers connected to international financial institutions, development agencies, and the private sector. His government does not include figures from indigenous movements, or trade union and peasant organizations. Paz, a graduate of the American University in Washington, represented Bolivia in the WTO, despite the fact he is a former member of the Socialist International and ran for the Revolutionary Left Movement (Movimiento de la Izquierda Revolucionaria) in the early 2000s. Criticism leveled against the WTO include bias in favor multinational corporations, systematic bias against developing nations, accusations that it restricts access to food and healthcare, and that it prioritizes trade over environmental and labor standards.
Paz gained an edge in the first presidential election held in August when the popular former president, Evo Morales, was excluded from participating, which resulted in his supporters running a "null vote" campaign in protest. Morales was barred from running after rulings handed down by the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal (Tribunal Constitucional Plurinacional) and Supreme Electoral Tribunal (Tribunal Supremo Electoral).
The president at the time, Luis Alberto Arce Catacora, a banker and economist, initiated a lawfare campaign against Morales with the coordination of the government. Morales accused Arce of attempting to have him assassinated in October, 2024. Earlier this month, Paz had Arce arrested during a corruption investigation related to alleged embezzlement of public funds when he was economy minister. Acre, a supporter of Palestine, claims he is a political prisoner.
Failed CIA Coup Against President Arce
In June 2024, an attempted military coup in Bolivia was led by General Juan José Zúñiga against President Arce. The coup attempt failed after three hours and Zúñiga was arrested when supporters of the ruling Movement Toward Socialism took to the streets.
In the aftermath of the failed coup, rumors of CIA involvement surfaced on social media. "Users on X, formerly Twitter, speculated that the coup attempt was secretly backed by the CIA, either in relation to Bolivia's vast supplies of lithium, in retaliation for its closeness to Russia or for its hostility to Israel. The tweets gained hundreds of thousands of views," Newsweek reported.
"This is the second CIA-backed coup plot against the Bolivian state in under 5 years," a popular X commentator posted. "Bolivia has 21 million tons of lithium reserves-the largest on the planet. Bolivia also cut off all relations with Israel in condemnation of the genocide in Gaza. Coincidence ? I think not."
Economic Competition by China and Russia in Latin America
Others pointed out Arce's relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In June, 2024 the two leaders met at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and discussed lithium battery production in addition to other bilateral topics of interest. China is also interested in Bolivia's lithium production. China's CBC consortium, which includes battery manufacturer CATL, and Russia's Uranium One Group, a subsidiary of state nuclear firm Rosatom, signed contracts with Bolivia in 2023 and 2024. However, prior to the election victory of Paz, a Bolivian court suspended the trade deals with Russia and China.
In addition, Chinese President Xi Jinping called on Bolivia to align China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with a Bolivian 2025 development plan. Xi made the comment during a meeting with Arce on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders' Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2024.
"The Belt and Road Initiative is the starkest example of how U.S. capitalist system and its current stage of imperialism has been eclipsed by China's market-oriented socialist economy," writes Danny Haiphong.
That the U.S. and its Western allies opposing the Belt and Road Initiative are primarily responsible for the fact that five individuals own more wealth than half the world's population tells us all we need to know about the legitimacy of U.S. and Western critiques of the BRI. U.S. opposition to China's Belt and Road is evidence of a global struggle between the decline of U.S. imperialism and China's market socialist economy.
The BRI and socialist governments in the Global South pose a threat to the exploitation of natural resources and cheap labor by the financial elite in the West. "In recent years, Western countries led by the United States have been hyping up 'China's economic coercion,'" notes Friends of Socialist China. "The United States is the undisputed king of economic coercion."
In response to China's growing economic footprint, in 2019 the Trump administration authorized a a clandestine CIA campaign "on Chinese social media aimed at turning public opinion in China against its government, according to former U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the highly classified operation," Reuters reported in 2024. "The CIA operation came in response to years of aggressive covert efforts by China aimed at increasing its global influence, the sources said."
China's "aggressive covert efforts" have resulted in an extensive infrastructure network and has created jobs in Central Asia, West Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. By 2023, trade between China and Belt and Road nations exceeded $19 trillion, according to Chinese state media.
The effort by the United States to rollback socialist governments in Latin America is directly related to the influence of China and Russia. In 2024, twenty-five of thirty-one Central and South American countries negotiated infrastructure investments from China. Chinese companies operate
mines in Mexico, Argentina, Peru, and Venezuela, electrical grids in Peru and Chile, 5G wireless systems in Costa Rica, Bolivia, Brazil, and Mexico-80 percent of Mexico's telecommunications equipment is provided by Chinese companies-space launch and satellite tracking facilities in Argentina, and the world's largest embassy in the Bahamas.
Trump: Rightwing Governments "Coming Our Way"
The Trump administration has doubled-down on interventionist policies in Latin America in response to the influence of China and Russia. Dubbed the "Trump Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine, the US has increased its military presence in the Caribbean, marking the largest deployment since the Cold War. Trump has imposed sanctions on Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Bolivia, in addition to meddling in Honduras by endorsing Nasry Asfura, indicted by the Honduran authorities in 2020 on charges of embezzling public funds, money laundering, fraud, and abuse of authority. Asfura's political party, National Party of Honduras (Partido Nacional de Honduras), described as conservative, was involved in corruption, including using money from the Honduran Social Security in order to finance the campaign of President Juan Orlando Hernández. The disgraced politician was granted a pardon by Trump after he was convicted in a major drug trafficking and money laundering operation.
Following the election victory of Rodrigo Paz and the rejection of the Mvement for Socialism, Trump declared: "Like Bolivia, there are numerous other countries coming our way," including Argentina, El Salvador, and Ecuador, led by Javier Milei, Nayib Bukele, and Daniel Noboa. In 2019, during his first administration, Trump applauded the resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales.
Trump's imperial restoration, as delineated by his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, is focused on continued exploitation of Latin America's natural resources, in addition to preventing China and Russia from developing economic relationships in the region. The Trump administration's pardon of the drug trafficker Hernández exposes the falsehood of its ostensible war on "narcoterrorism."
This article was originally published on Another Day in the Empire.
Kurt Nimmo is a journalist, author, and geopolitical analyst, New Mexico, United States. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Visit the author's blog.