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

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2:10Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. In Bolivia, the political winds have shifted. After almost two decades of socialist rule, the South American country recently elected a centrist president, Rodrigo Paz.

2:41Paz celebrated his victory as a win for the whole country. He called for an end to hatred, racism and division, and a new national unity.

2:55The Trump administration welcomed the win. And in President Paz's first seven months in office, Paz has pledged to make the country more attractive to outside investors who have long been interested in Bolivia's natural resources, including rare earths and lithium. But Paz has gotten off to a bad start with many Bolivians who are struggling to make ends meet. Inflation is hovering around 14 percent. Bolivia has a massive debt load, and U.S. dollars are scarce. I decided to go to Bolivia because I wanted to see firsthand the changes President Paz is trying to implement. I lived in Bolivia in 2005 when Evo Morales and his movement toward socialism came to power.

3:36I set up an interview with President Paz a few weeks ago. We were going to sit down in Bolivia's presidential palace to talk about his agenda. But that morning, our plans were disrupted.

3:49Protests engulfed La Paz, and demonstrators had blocked highways across the country. As the day wore on, a group of teachers attacked the education ministry, and mine workers threw dynamite on the city streets. What kicked off these protests was a decision Paz made a few months earlier to get rid of fuel subsidies. The price of gasoline rose sharply, and what really rankled many Bolivians is the government's state-owned supplier provided what came to be called trash gasoline, watered-down fuel that damaged vehicles. After that, frustration built with Paz and with his inability to improve the country's economy faster.

4:31On that afternoon in mid-May, police blocked the entrances to the plaza where the presidential palace is located. It took a while, but eventually we got the go-ahead to climb through barricades.

4:47We were told to wait in an empty cafe for a call from one of the president's advisors. As the hours ticked by, we heard demonstrators just a few blocks away and explosions. Tear gas hung in the air, along with this central question President Paz is facing. Can he convince investors Bolivia is open for business and Bolivians that business will be good for them?

5:14I'm David Gura, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, Bolivia at a crossroads. Can the country's first non-socialist president in two decades deliver on his promises to open up his country to the world? Or will mass protests push him out?

5:35To transform Bolivia's economy, President Rodrigo Paz wants to harness his country's rich mineral wealth. And the president talks a lot in particular about lithium, an essential component of batteries used for everything from cell phones to electric cars. Bolivia has one of the largest lithium reserves in the world, and a lot of it is located beneath the sprawling Salar de Ayuni. It's a salt flat on a two-mile-high plateau that is so vast it's visible from space. We are at 3 ,650 meters above sea level, my friend. Very high. Very high, very high. It's the largest salt flats on the world, you know?

6:14José David Valda Belén is a tour guide based in a uni. This is the east, the west, north and south. So the lithium mining just down on the south part of the Salar. President Paz says that if the country can develop these reserves, it'll improve the economic fortunes of some 12 million Bolivians. But like others who live in this area, Jose is worried about the impact of lithium mining and production. Getting the lithium from underneath this salt flat to a usable form takes a lot of water. Beneath this, there's a layer of water. Layer of water, yeah. So what they do, it's like they build big pots, you know, huge pots.

6:55They pump the salty water and that and displaces and then evaporate it. But then they need a lot of sweet water or fresh water to clean, to wash the mineral. Jose says farmers worry they'll lose access to the water they need. So that means like these dry areas can get more dry, you know. So that will be a big problem for these people. Jose also says people here worry about how mining would impact this singularly beautiful place, which attracts visitors from around the world. More than a million people came to Bolivia last year, and they contributed more than$800 million to the country's economy.

7:32Because if they mine a lot, this will be destroyed later on. Not now, you know. Not even in 10 years, maybe 50 years, 60 years in the future, it will destroy. This wasn't the first time I'd been to these salt flats. I studied abroad in Bolivia for six months in 2005, and I'd heard similar complaints about who benefits from Bolivia's natural resources. Back then, some politicians were also pushing to mine the country's lithium and harness other natural resources like zinc and natural gas. But of course, this is a story that goes back centuries. Spain tapped the country's rich reserves for hundreds of years when Bolivia was a Spanish colony.

8:13And just as old is this distrust among Bolivians that they won't share in the country's mining riches, even though the country's constitution establishes state ownership of all mineral resources for the benefit of the people. Andres Páez-Rodriguez, the executive secretary of Bolivia's Federation of Mining Workers, says the country's current mining laws, quote, do what they have always done.

8:40They've always been alienating and stripping away lands for a very long time, since well before colonial times, through the colony, independence, and the republic.

8:52All of that, state ownership of mines and deep skepticism, mean projects haven't really gotten off the ground. So, no, the country's never been closed for business, right? There's always been foreign investors coming in, and there's always been the ability to do business. Jorge Inchauste is a senior partner at the law firm Dentons. He's based in La Paz and Inchauste spends a lot of his time working with foreign investors on deals involving Bolivia's natural resources. Would you talk about the hesitancy that investors have had in the past? What gives them pause or what are the hurdles to getting foreign investors to come into Bolivia?

9:27So foreign investors are a little weary and concerned that their rights won't be respected. And they won't be able to carry out the project in the terms that they want. One of the main things in some strategic sectors was that you needed to be in an agreement with the government. If the government had too much of a say, right, and you were not in a position to, you know, make your rights upheld, then, of course, that gives everyone pause. President Paz, who was sworn in in November, offers investors a new and potentially friendlier face. For the past 20 years, Bolivia had been run by Evo Morales' movement towards socialism.

10:11He now lives in a remote compound. But many people here, including President Paz, hold him responsible for the current protests. That is an allegation union leaders have batted back. Sergio Mendoza, who covers Bolivia for Bloomberg, says Morales' leadership has also shaped how Bolivians see the role of government. He accumulated so much power with the mass party movement towards socialism. that it became a government and a state that controlled or had a very important role in the economy, becoming practically the only actor in the economy, the only or the most important actor to give employment and to control different organizations, to control justice, Congress, of course, government and local governments too, and even different organizations.

11:00Sergio says that in the protests against the government now, unions are taking a hard line. They're not looking for talks, but demanding Paz's resignation. So they made an alliance to fight together and not negotiate with the government from their own side, but fight together until Rodrigo Paz resigned. They say, it's for us that this government is in power. We support them. It's on us if they continue or not. And as I saw when I was in La Paz a few weeks ago, their most powerful means of protest is the blockade. We have been blockaded always. There were reports from private organizations that saying in one year we had more than 200 blockades, you know, like almost one per day.

11:52Sergio says blockades or bloqueos are a protest tactic that dates back centuries. It's a historically practiced and very efficient practice. And basically it's that communities are very, very well organized under groups all over Bolivia. And they organize to blockade the roads that connect different departments, different cities, and even Bolivia to other countries or neighbors like Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Peru. So they blockade them. They are very well organized. They put stones. They put different objects. And yeah, it's very efficient because soon as a sector starts to blockade, the government pay attention to them.

12:38But, he says, the protests that are happening now are, in many ways, unique. It's different in that people are exhausted of this kind of measure and protest. exhausted because also these groups that are protesting now and are blockading are related with the previous administration, with Evo Morales that also conducted the country to this economic crisis. It's different too because we are seeing that these blockades are lasting a lot, like a long time. It's more than a month. I would say it's different in the way that the government is administrating this conflict. There are a lot of critiques.

13:21They are criticizing the government because apparently they are not doing anything. They are just calling for conversations and people are suffering, people are tired, people are dying on the roads. We are going to see in the next days probably if they are going to declare a state of emergency. But it's also different in the way that we don't know what exactly the government is going to do. Back in La Paz, I waited in the cafe with Sergio and our crew for that interview with President Paz. But just before midnight, one of the president's advisors told us he'd have to postpone. Talks with the mine workers were still going on and would continue in the coming days.

13:59So we packed up our gear and a few hours later, we headed back to New York. But that wouldn't be the last we heard from President Paz. That is after the break.

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17:07A week after my team left Bolivia, we had a chance to connect remotely with President Rodrigo Paz. He and I spoke as protests continued to snarl the country, and blockades across Bolivia led to shortages of food and gas and medical supplies. Many of these protesters are calling on you to resign, to step down, and I'm wondering if there's a point at which that will become something that you would consider. In five years from now, when we conclude our administration, Bolivia will be an advanced nation, grounded in a modernity made necessary by new institutions, a frontal assault on corruption, a controlled fiscal deficit, and a clear path towards growth, within an open economy governed by clear laws.

18:02Moreover, it will be a country where racial, regional, and cultural differences are not exploited to fuel political conflict, where I hope I will leave behind a government characterized by pluralistic participation.

18:20The president told me he sees Bolivia as a country that can compete with its regional rivals and can replicate their successes. Peru, Bolivia, and Chile collectively hold the largest concentration of minerals in the world. Peru generates$50 billion annually. Chile generates$65 billion annually.

18:46Bolivia possesses the highest concentration of minerals of the three, yet we generate only$6 billion per year. The question is, why do we choose to be poor? I wanted to know more about the support he's gotten and continues to get from the United States. Trump administration officials have publicly backed him, and they've embraced Paz's new vision for Bolivia. Recently, Bolivia and the U.S. signed a memo of understanding on critical minerals.

19:18I met with President Trump. There is a relationship regarding the geopolitical and geoeconomic vision on the continental level. Bolivia's vision is very clear. Pragmatic is everything that is functional for the development of our economy, of the economy of the people. We will be seated so that we can collaborate and be part of a global vision. I asked Jorge Inchauste, the lawyer in La Paz, what Bolivia has to do to compete, to be, as the president has said, open for business. So it's not an immediate thing. Chile, for instance, has a long track record. We don't. We have to build that. Trust is not built in one day.

20:01So we need to build that trust. We need an adequate framework. And I think that the government's working on that. So we need an adequate framework to start off with. But then we need to build the trust. And we also need, I think, to have clear policies that will stand the test of time. So we have to move within the confines and the requirements of the Bolivian Constitution and the law. And we have to make sure that we're going with transparent, adequate processes. right? Giving adequate guarantees to the foreign investors. So I think it's a process, right? And it's also one of those processes where one goes in and then that more will follow.

20:46And as soon as you start seeing three or four companies that are being successful, all of a sudden we're going to have many more. Bolivia just had its first dollar bond sale in four years. The country raised about a billion dollars. And it's turned to the International Monetary Fund for help. Bolivia is in negotiations for a$3 billion aid package. But just six months into President Paz's five-year term, Bolivians are running out of patience. I imagine there are investors outside the country who are watching what's unfolding in Bolivia and wondering how much has changed if it's still status quo that there are protests and demonstrations and overarching uncertainty.

21:26What would you say to those investors, to those prospective investors, about what Bolivia is like today and how welcoming Bolivia is of outside investment?