Bolivia

Bolivia exists because Spain found silver in a mountain—and because each subsequent extraction boom has followed the same script. In 1545, the Spanish discovered silver at Cerro Rico in Potosí. By 1650, Potosí had 200,000 inhabitants, nearly matching London, and eight million indigenous and African slaves would die extracting metal that flowed straight to Madrid. The wealth never stayed.

The pattern persisted. When silver declined, tin rose. By the early twentieth century, Simon Patino—the 'Andean Rockefeller'—commanded more revenue than the Bolivian state itself. The 1952 revolution nationalized the tin mines and introduced universal suffrage, but when global tin prices collapsed in 1985, so did the economy. Hyperinflation followed.

Natural gas offered a third act. Evo Morales's 2006 nationalization was politically popular—and economically ruinous. Foreign investment fled, exploration ceased, and Bolivia slipped from South America's second-largest gas exporter to a marginal producer struggling to meet domestic demand. Now international reserves have plunged from $15 billion in 2014 to under $2 billion in 2024. A parallel dollar market trades at 95% above the official rate. Inflation reached 24%, the fiscal deficit exceeded 10% of GDP, and Fitch downgraded the country to CCC- in January 2025.

Underneath lies the fourth potential boom: 21 million metric tons of lithium reserves, the world's largest. But constitutional provisions mandate state control, Chinese and Russian firms dominate the few active projects, and Bolivia lacks the technology to develop the resource independently.

In November 2025, Rodrigo Paz won the presidency promising market liberalization after two decades of MAS rule fractured by the Morales-Arce power struggle. GDP grew only 1.4% in 2024. By 2026, the question is whether Bolivia can break its five-century pattern—or whether lithium becomes the next commodity to flow outward while wealth remains elusive.