# We Went to Interview Bolivia’s President and a Riot Broke Out

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 4 Jun 2026, 18 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/dfb42ad2-9cad-4959-bbf1-b45f01685d34/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

President Rodrigo Paz ended 20 years of socialist rule in Bolivia with promises of unity, democracy and prosperity — and plans to tap the country’s mineral wealth. But when host David Gura went to Bolivia to interview the president, he found a harsher reality: demonstrators blockading La Paz’s streets to demand the president’s resignation. On today’s Big Take podcast, Gura shows how centuries-old distrust of government is complicating President Paz’s efforts to persuade Bolivians – and investors – that this time is different. We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by David Gura; Produced by David Fox; Reported by David Gura and Sergio Mendoza; Edited by Jeffrey Grocott and Tracey Samuelson. Fact-checking by Rachael Lewis-Krisky and Laura Newcombe; Engineering by Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. Special thanks to Simon Hampton, Javier Castaneda, Luke Mailander and Adonai Sierra. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:08] Speaker 2: In Bolivia, the political wins have shifted. After almost two
[0:12] Speaker 2: decades of socialist rule, the South American country recently elected
[0:16] Speaker 2: a centrist president, Rodrigo Paz. Paz celebrated his victory as
[0:26] Speaker 2: a win for the whole country. He called for an
[0:29] Speaker 2: end to hatred, racism, and division, and a new national unity.
[0:39] Speaker 2: The Trump administration welcomed the win, and in President Pause's
[0:42] Speaker 2: first seven months in office, Paz has pledged to make
[0:45] Speaker 2: the country more attractive to outside investors, who have long
[0:49] Speaker 2: been interested in Bolivia's natural resources, including rare earths and lithium.
[0:54] Speaker 2: But Paz has gotten off to a bad start with
[0:56] Speaker 2: many Bolivians who were struggling to make ends meet. Is
[1:00] Speaker 2: hovering around fourteen percent, Bolivia has a massive debt load,
[1:04] Speaker 2: and US dollars are scarce. I decided to go to
[1:08] Speaker 2: Bolivia because I wanted to see firsthand that change's President
[1:11] Speaker 2: Pause is trying to implement. I lived in Bolivia in
[1:14] Speaker 2: two thousand and five when Avo Morales and his movement
[1:17] Speaker 2: towards socialism came to power. I set up an interview
[1:21] Speaker 2: with President Pause a few weeks ago. We were going
[1:23] Speaker 2: to sit down in Bolivia's presidential palace to talk about
[1:26] Speaker 2: his agenda. But that morning our plans were disrupted. Protests
[1:33] Speaker 2: engulfed Lapause, and demonstrators have blocked highways across the country.
[1:38] Speaker 2: As the day war on, a group of teachers attacked
[1:41] Speaker 2: the education ministry and mine workers through dynamite on the
[1:45] Speaker 2: city streets. What kicked off these protests was a decision
[1:49] Speaker 2: Pause made a few months earlier to get rid of
[1:51] Speaker 2: fuel subsidies. The price of gasoline rose sharply, and what
[1:55] Speaker 2: really rankled many Bolivians is the government's state owned supplier
[1:59] Speaker 2: provided did what came to be called trash gasoline, watered
[2:03] Speaker 2: down fuel that damaged vehicles. After that, frustration built with
[2:08] Speaker 2: Pause and with his inability to improve the country's economy faster.
[2:16] Speaker 2: On that afternoon in mid May, police blocked the entrances
[2:19] Speaker 2: to the plaza where the presidential palace is located. It
[2:22] Speaker 2: took a while, but eventually we got the go ahead
[2:24] Speaker 2: to climb through barricades. We were told to wait in
[2:32] Speaker 2: an empty cafe for a call from one of the
[2:35] Speaker 2: president's advisors. As the hours ticked by, we heard demonstrators
[2:40] Speaker 2: just a few blocks away and explosions, tear gas hung
[2:44] Speaker 2: in the air. Along with this central question President Pause
[2:47] Speaker 2: is facing. Can he convince investors Bolivia is open for
[2:51] Speaker 2: business and Bolivian's that business will be good for them.
[2:58] Speaker 2: I'm David Gura and this is the big take from
[3:00] Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Today on the show Bolivia at a Crossroads.
[3:04] Speaker 2: Can the country's first non socialist president in two decades
[3:07] Speaker 2: deliver on his promises to open up his country to
[3:10] Speaker 2: the world, or will mass protests push him out To
[3:19] Speaker 2: transform Bolivia's economy, President Rodrigo Pause wants to harness his
[3:23] Speaker 2: country's rich mineral wealth, and the president talks a lot,
[3:27] Speaker 2: in particular about lithium, an essential component of batteries used
[3:30] Speaker 2: for everything from cell phones to electric cars. Bolivia has
[3:34] Speaker 2: one of the largest lithium reserves in the world, and
[3:37] Speaker 2: a lot of it is located beneath the sprawling Salardo Uni.
[3:41] Speaker 2: It's a salt flat on a two mile high plateau
[3:44] Speaker 2: that is so vast it's visible from space.
[3:47] Speaker 3: We are at the three thousand, six hundred and fifty
[3:51] Speaker 3: meters above sea level.
[3:52] Speaker 4: My friend, very high, very high, very high.
[3:55] Speaker 3: It's the largest soulfless on the war.
[3:58] Speaker 2: Jose da vid Valde Belen is a tour guide based
[4:01] Speaker 2: in a Uni.
[4:02] Speaker 3: They says the east, the west, north, and south, so
[4:05] Speaker 3: the lithium mining just down on the south part of this.
[4:10] Speaker 2: President Pod says that if the country can develop these reserves,
[4:13] Speaker 2: it'll improve the economic fortunes of some twelve million Bolivians.
[4:18] Speaker 2: But like others who live in this area, Jose is
[4:20] Speaker 2: worried about the impact of lithium mining and production. Getting
[4:24] Speaker 2: the lithium from underneath the salt flat to a usable
[4:26] Speaker 2: form takes a lot of water. Beneath this there's a
[4:30] Speaker 2: layer of water water.
[4:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, so what they do, it's like they build big pots,
[4:37] Speaker 3: you know, huge pots. They pumped the salty water and
[4:41] Speaker 3: that and these places and then evaporate it. Okay, but
[4:44] Speaker 3: then then they need a lot of sweet water, fresh water,
[4:48] Speaker 3: clean to wash the mineral.
[4:50] Speaker 2: Hoose says. Farmers worry they'll lose access to the water
[4:53] Speaker 2: they need.
[4:54] Speaker 3: So that means like these dry areas can get more dry,
[4:58] Speaker 3: you know, so that will be a big and forty people.
[5:01] Speaker 2: Jose also says people here worry about how mining would
[5:04] Speaker 2: impact this singularly beautiful place, which attracts visitors from around
[5:08] Speaker 2: the world. More than a million people came to Bolivia
[5:11] Speaker 2: last year, and they contributed more than eight hundred million
[5:14] Speaker 2: dollars to the country's economy.
[5:16] Speaker 3: Because if they mind a lot, this will be destroyed
[5:20] Speaker 3: later on, not now, you know, not even in ten years,
[5:24] Speaker 3: maybe fifty years, six years in the future, it will destroy.
[5:29] Speaker 2: This wasn't the first time I'd been to these salt flats.
[5:32] Speaker 2: I studied abroad in Bolivia for six months in two
[5:34] Speaker 2: thousand and five, and I'd heard similar complaints about who
[5:38] Speaker 2: benefits from Bolivia's natural resources. Back then, some politicians were
[5:42] Speaker 2: also pushing to mine the country's lithium and harness other
[5:45] Speaker 2: natural resources like zinc and natural gas. But of course
[5:49] Speaker 2: this is a story that goes back centuries. Spain tapped
[5:52] Speaker 2: the country's rich reserves for hundreds of years when Bolivia
[5:55] Speaker 2: was a Spanish colony, and just as old is this
[5:58] Speaker 2: distrust among Bolivians that they won't share in the country's
[6:01] Speaker 2: mining riches, even though the country's constitution establishes state ownership
[6:05] Speaker 2: of all mineral resources for the benefit of the people.
[6:10] Speaker 2: Assume Andres Pias Rodriguez, the executive secretary of Bolivia's Federation
[6:15] Speaker 2: of Mining Workers, says the country's current mining laws quote
[6:18] Speaker 2: do what they have always done. Well, they've always been
[6:25] Speaker 2: alienating and stripping away lands for a very long time,
[6:28] Speaker 2: since well before colonial times, through the colony, independence and
[6:31] Speaker 2: the republic.
[6:32] Speaker 4: They see the colonial dependention.
[6:36] Speaker 2: All of that state ownership of minds and deep skepticism.
[6:39] Speaker 2: I mean, projects haven't really gotten off the ground.
[6:42] Speaker 5: So no, the country has never been closed for business, right,
[6:45] Speaker 5: There's always been foreign investors coming in and there's always
[6:50] Speaker 5: been the ability to do business.
[6:53] Speaker 2: Jorge in Choostay is a senior partner at the law
[6:55] Speaker 2: firm Dentin's. He's based in La Paz and in Chaustay
[6:59] Speaker 2: spends a lot of his time working with foreign investors
[7:01] Speaker 2: on deals involving Bolivia's natural resources.
[7:04] Speaker 4: Would you talk about.
[7:05] Speaker 2: The hesitancy that investors have had in the past, what
[7:06] Speaker 2: gives them pause or what are the hurdles to getting
[7:08] Speaker 2: foreign investors to come into Bolivia?
[7:11] Speaker 5: So foreign investors are little weary and concerned, right that
[7:16] Speaker 5: their rights won't be respected, right and they won't be
[7:19] Speaker 5: able to carry out the project in the terms that
[7:22] Speaker 5: they want. One of the main things in some strategic
[7:26] Speaker 5: sectors was that you needed to be in an agreement
[7:28] Speaker 5: with the government. If the government had too much of
[7:32] Speaker 5: a say right and you were not in a position
[7:35] Speaker 5: to you make your rights upheld, then of course that
[7:41] Speaker 5: gives everyone pause.
[7:44] Speaker 2: President Pause, who was sworn in in November, offers investors
[7:47] Speaker 2: a new and potentially friendlier face. For the past twenty years,
[7:51] Speaker 2: Bolivia had been run by Evo Morales's movement towards socialism.
[7:55] Speaker 2: He now lives in a remote compound, but many people here,
[7:59] Speaker 2: including President Pause, hold him responsible for the current protests.
[8:03] Speaker 2: That is an allegation union leaders have added back. Cercio Mendoza,
[8:07] Speaker 2: who covers Bolivia for Bloomberg, says Moralesi's leadership has also
[8:11] Speaker 2: shaped helped oblivion see the role of government.
[8:14] Speaker 1: He accumulated so much power with the mass party movement
[8:18] Speaker 1: towards socialism that it became a government and a state
[8:23] Speaker 1: that control or had a very important role in the economy.
[8:26] Speaker 1: Became practically the only actor in the economy, the only
[8:31] Speaker 1: or the most important actor to give employment and to
[8:34] Speaker 1: control different organizations, to control justice Congress, of course, government
[8:39] Speaker 1: and local governments too, and even different organizations.
[8:44] Speaker 2: Sirkio says that in the protests against the government now,
[8:47] Speaker 2: unions are taking a hard line. They're not looking for talks,
[8:51] Speaker 2: but demanding passes resignation.
[8:53] Speaker 1: So they made an alliance to fight together and not
[8:58] Speaker 1: negotiate with the government from their own site, but fights
[9:02] Speaker 1: together until Rodrigo Paz resigned. They say, is for us
[9:09] Speaker 1: that this government is in power. We support them, is
[9:14] Speaker 1: on us if they continue or not.
[9:16] Speaker 2: As I saw when I was in LAPAs a few
[9:18] Speaker 2: weeks ago, their most powerful means of protest is the blockade.
[9:23] Speaker 1: We have been located always honestly, like there were reports
[9:29] Speaker 1: from private organizations that's saying in one year we had
[9:32] Speaker 1: more than two hundred blockades, you know, like almost one
[9:35] Speaker 1: per day.
[9:36] Speaker 2: Circius's blockades or black chaos or a protest tactic that
[9:40] Speaker 2: dates back centuries.
[9:42] Speaker 1: It's a historically practiced and very efficient practice and basically
[9:46] Speaker 1: is that communities are very very well organized under groups
[9:51] Speaker 1: over Bolivia, and they organize to blocate the roads that
[9:56] Speaker 1: connect different departments, different cities and even Bolivia to to
[10:00] Speaker 1: other countries, to our neighbors like Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru.
[10:06] Speaker 1: So they blockade them. They are very well organized. They
[10:09] Speaker 1: put stones, they put different objects, and yeah, it's very
[10:14] Speaker 1: efficient because Soon has a sector start to blocate the
[10:18] Speaker 1: government pay attention to them.
[10:22] Speaker 2: But he says the protests that are happening now are
[10:25] Speaker 2: in many ways unique.
[10:26] Speaker 1: Is different in that people are exhausted of this kind
[10:31] Speaker 1: of measure and protests exhausted. Because also these groups that
[10:36] Speaker 1: are protesting now and other blockading are related with previously,
[10:41] Speaker 1: with the previous administration with EVO moralities that also conducted
[10:46] Speaker 1: the country to this economic crisis. It's different too because
[10:50] Speaker 1: we are seeing that these blockades are lasting a lot,
[10:55] Speaker 1: like a long time, it's more than a month. I
[10:58] Speaker 1: would say it's different in the way that the government
[11:00] Speaker 1: is administering this conflict. There are a lot of critiques.
[11:05] Speaker 1: They are criticizing the government because apparently they are not
[11:08] Speaker 1: doing anything. They are just calling for conversations and people
[11:12] Speaker 1: are suffering, People are tired, people are dying on the roads.
[11:16] Speaker 1: We are going to see in the next day is
[11:18] Speaker 1: probably if they are going to declare a state of emergency.
[11:21] Speaker 1: But is also different in the way that we don't
[11:25] Speaker 1: know what exactly is the government is going to do.
[11:28] Speaker 2: Back in the Pause, I waited in the cafe with
[11:30] Speaker 2: Cercia on our crew for that interview with President Pause,
[11:34] Speaker 2: but just before midnight, one of the President's advisors told
[11:36] Speaker 2: us he'd have to postpone talks with the mind workers.
[11:40] Speaker 2: We're still going on and would continue in the coming days.
[11:43] Speaker 2: So we packed up our gear and a few hours
[11:46] Speaker 2: later we headed back to New York. But that would
[11:48] Speaker 2: be the last we heard from President Pause. That is,
[11:51] Speaker 2: after the breaking. A week after my team left Bolivia,
[12:02] Speaker 2: we had a chance to connect remotely with President Rodrigo Pause.
[12:06] Speaker 2: He and I spoke as protests continued to snarl the
[12:08] Speaker 2: country and blockades across Bolivia led to shortages of food
[12:12] Speaker 2: and gas and medical supplies. Many of these protesters are
[12:16] Speaker 2: calling on you to resign, to step down, and I'm
[12:19] Speaker 2: wondering if there's a point at which that will become
[12:21] Speaker 2: something that you would consider.
[12:23] Speaker 4: The Akia sinks.
[12:25] Speaker 6: In five years from now, when we conclude our administration,
[12:29] Speaker 6: Bolivia will be an advanced nation, grounded in a modernity
[12:33] Speaker 6: made necessary by new institutions.
[12:36] Speaker 4: Institution on this on a lucha frontal contra la corus.
[12:42] Speaker 6: A frontal assault on corruption, a controlled fiscal deficit, and
[12:46] Speaker 6: a clear path towards growth within an open economy governed
[12:50] Speaker 6: by clear laws.
[12:52] Speaker 4: Glad us but mas.
[12:55] Speaker 6: Moreover, it will be a country where racial, regional, and
[12:58] Speaker 6: cultural differences are not exploited to feel political conflict, where
[13:03] Speaker 6: I hope I will leave behind a government characterized by
[13:06] Speaker 6: pluralistic participation Don.
[13:08] Speaker 4: De espero de jarung govino de partisipas plural.
[13:13] Speaker 2: The president told me he sees Bolivia as a country
[13:15] Speaker 2: that can compete with its regional rivals and can replicate
[13:19] Speaker 2: their successes.
[13:20] Speaker 6: Peru, Peru, Bolivia, and Chile collectively hold the largest concentration
[13:25] Speaker 6: of minerals in the world. Peru generates fifty billion dollars annually,
[13:31] Speaker 6: Chile generates sixty five billion dollars annually.
[13:35] Speaker 4: Gomil millons de dollar alanyo Bolivia.
[13:39] Speaker 6: Bolivia possesses the highest concentration of minerals of the three,
[13:43] Speaker 6: yet we generate only six billion dollars per.
[13:46] Speaker 4: Year la preumtas.
[13:48] Speaker 6: The question is why do we choose to be poor?
[13:53] Speaker 2: I wanted to know more about the support he's gotten
[13:55] Speaker 2: and continues to get from the United States. Trump administration
[13:58] Speaker 2: officials have publicly back to him, and they've embraced Paz's
[14:01] Speaker 2: new vision for Bolivia. Recently, Bolivia and the US signed
[14:05] Speaker 2: a memo of understanding on critical minerals.
[14:10] Speaker 4: President Trump.
[14:11] Speaker 6: I met with President Trump. There is a relationship regarding
[14:15] Speaker 6: the geopolitical and geoeconomic vision on the continental level. Bolivia's
[14:21] Speaker 6: vision is very clear, pragmatic is everything that is functional
[14:26] Speaker 6: for the development of our economy, of the economy of
[14:29] Speaker 6: the people. We will be seated so that we can
[14:31] Speaker 6: collaborate and be part of a global vision.
[14:34] Speaker 2: I asked Korgey and Chowstay, the lawyer in La Pause,
[14:37] Speaker 2: what Bolivia has to do to compete to be as
[14:40] Speaker 2: the president has said, open for business.
[14:42] Speaker 5: So it's not an an immediate thing. Chinda, for instance,
[14:47] Speaker 5: has a long track record, right, we don't. We have
[14:51] Speaker 5: to build that trust is not built in one day, right,
[14:54] Speaker 5: So we need to build that trust. We need an
[14:57] Speaker 5: adequate framework and I think that government working on that.
[15:01] Speaker 5: So we need an addequate framework to start off with.
[15:04] Speaker 5: But then we need to build the trust and we
[15:06] Speaker 5: also need, I think, to have clear policies that will
[15:11] Speaker 5: stand the test of time. So we have to move
[15:15] Speaker 5: within the confines and the requirements of the building, constitution
[15:18] Speaker 5: and the law, and we have to make sure that
[15:22] Speaker 5: we're going with transparent, adequate processes, right, giving the adequate
[15:27] Speaker 5: guarantees to the foreign investors. So I think it's a process, right,
[15:33] Speaker 5: And it's also one of those processes where one goes
[15:36] Speaker 5: in and then that more will follow. And as soon
[15:40] Speaker 5: as you start seeing three or four companies that are
[15:43] Speaker 5: being successful, all of a sudden, well we're going to
[15:46] Speaker 5: have many more.
[15:47] Speaker 2: Bolivia just had its first dollar bond sale in four years.
[15:51] Speaker 2: The country raised about a billion dollars and it's turned
[15:54] Speaker 2: to the International Monetary Fund for help. Bolivia is in
[15:57] Speaker 2: negotiations for a three billion dollar aid package, but just
[16:01] Speaker 2: six months into President Pause's five year term, Bolivians are
[16:04] Speaker 2: running out of patients. I imagine there are investors outside
[16:08] Speaker 2: the country who are watching what's unfolding in Bolivia and
[16:11] Speaker 2: wondering how much has changed, if it's still status quo,
[16:15] Speaker 2: that there are protests and demonstrations and overarching uncertainty. What
[16:19] Speaker 2: would you say to those investors or those prospective investors
[16:22] Speaker 2: about what Bolivia is like today and how welcoming Bolivia
[16:25] Speaker 2: is of outside investment.
[16:27] Speaker 4: Nostrometiromanios.
[16:30] Speaker 6: We were promised twenty years of the possibility of becoming
[16:33] Speaker 6: a Switzerland. That was the promise made twenty years ago.
[16:38] Speaker 6: Twenty years later, they have left behind a shattered economy,
[16:43] Speaker 6: stripped of the natural resources such as hydrocarbons that we
[16:46] Speaker 6: would otherwise.
[16:47] Speaker 4: Export, but a politics.
[16:49] Speaker 6: We possess abundant hydrocarbon reserves, yet they have left us
[16:54] Speaker 6: without the necessary investments and without the security required to
[16:58] Speaker 6: ensure that those wishing to invest in Bolivia find clear
[17:03] Speaker 6: rules and laws during this transition, laws that would foster
[17:07] Speaker 6: an investment safe environment in Bolivia.
[17:12] Speaker 2: But in the face of popular protests, Preston pos has
[17:16] Speaker 2: had to put those reforms on hold. He's pushing Bolivia's
[17:19] Speaker 2: parliament to approve a new bill that would allow the
[17:21] Speaker 2: country's military to quell protests, and the president hasn't ruled
[17:26] Speaker 2: out declaring a state of emergency. This is the Big
[17:32] Speaker 2: Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. To get more
[17:35] Speaker 2: from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of
[17:38] Speaker 2: Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg dot Com Slash
[17:42] Speaker 2: Podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

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