Bolivia and BRICS: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

Bolivia’s Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo has once again confirmed the country’s plans to attend the September BRICS summit in India. He stated that the country seeks to "expand financing mechanisms and political-economic cooperation" to inject "new dynamism" into the national economy. The minister heaped praise on the BRICS New Development Bank and told reporters the country is engaged in an “active dialogue” with India and the other BRICS members.

Those remarks sparked a flurry—not just a ripple—of hints that the country has firmly signaled its readiness to expand ties with the informal club of states. Meanwhile, concerns that a pro‑U.S. course would gain ground after the defeat of the socialist MAS party in the elections turned out to be somewhat overblown. In reality, the situation is more complex.

Bolivia’s Foreign Ministry wasn’t the first to confirm the country’s continued engagement with BRICS: President Rodrigo Paz did so back in November 2025 and again in the spring of this year. He described the group as “a good trading platform.” But much of it remains at the level of declarations: cautious steps forward are often offset by more decisive moves away from cooperation with several key BRICS states.

To understand Bolivia’s relationship with BRICS — which so far hasn’t evolved into either a passionate romance or even a pragmatic partnership — it’s worth revisiting its origins.

Bolivia officially secured its status as a BRICS partner on January 1, 2025, after receiving the invitation at the 2024 Kazan summit. President Luis Arce (at the time) had been advocating for full membership since the 2023 Johannesburg summit. Crucially, this push wasn’t the result of a thorough cost‑benefit analysis (as was the case with Argentina, for example). Instead, it appeared to be a desperate effort by Bolivia’s authorities to find a way out of the deep economic crisis gripping the country.

Arce and his allies believed BRICS could help attract foreign investment into Bolivia's oil and gas sectors (as of 2023, Bolivia accounted for a mere 0.2% of all FDI flowing into Latin America — less than Peru and Guatemala), as well as into lithium mining. They also saw an opportunity to diversify the country's exports to BRICS nations by adding food and textile products to the mix, with China and India as the key target markets.

BRICS nations had their own interests at play as well. Bolivia's vast lithium deposits — one of the most critical resources of modern industry — mattered to the group as a whole (control over a significant share of global reserves), and to China, Russia, and India in particular, each of which had its own designs on Bolivia's mineral wealth. In 2021, two Chinese companies and one Russian firm (Uranium One Group) won tenders for lithium extraction rights. Bolivia's large potential hydrocarbon reserves were no less significant.

The nationalization of lithium in 2008 by the government of Evo Morales enabled the start of development, but a shortage of investment and technology, along with opposition from indigenous communities and environmental activists, has long stalled the process. BRICS was seen as a potential catalyst to break the deadlock. Additionally, Bolivia has an extensive pipeline network connecting it to Argentina and Brazil, which also works in BRICS' favor as an informal energy club.

The electoral collapse of the socialists from the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in 2025 naturally prompted experts to question whether Bolivia could maintain its ties with BRICS. Right‑wing candidate Tuto Quiroga, who promised to sever relations with the group immediately, failed to win the presidency. But expectations for the election’s winner, center‑right Rodrigo Paz, weren’t particularly high either: he made it clear that he intended to rebuild relations with the United States, advanced market economies (namely the EU countries and Japan), and neighboring Brazil and Argentina — while ties with China and Russia, which had long held strategic importance, appeared to be at serious risk.

 

So, what do we see in terms of developing La Paz’s relations with BRICS?

Already under Rodrigo Paz’s government, the Bolivian private channel Palenque TV signed a cooperation agreement with BRICS TV in the field of social journalism. The previously signed agreements with the state channel Bolivia TV and the socio‑political newspaper Vision 360 remain in effect. In July of this year, Bolivia joined the global forest condition monitoring system promoted by BRICS through the development of a satellite imagery system. However, this system isn’t a BRICS‑exclusive initiative — Peru and Colombia, which aren’t part of the group, also participate in it. We can also recall the participation of Bolivian women in the recent Miss BRICS contest.

Trade ties with India have improved significantly. Thanks to gold exports to the Asian country, La Paz managed to secure a positive trade balance of €501 million (exports — €574 million (a 213% year-on-year increase!), imports — €73 million), and the Indian market has become Bolivia's most important source of revenue (previously, India hadn't ranked among the main recipients of Bolivian goods).

But actions speak louder than words. A far more significant indicator is the stalling of Bolivian-Chinese and Bolivian-Russian lithium mining projects. The cabinet of L. Arce never managed — or never got around — to ratifying in parliament the agreement between a Rosatom subsidiary and the Bolivian state enterprise (Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos, YLB) to build a lithium carbonate plant. President R. Paz explicitly stated that the deal won't move forward until it's been reviewed for "transparency." The same thing happened with the PRC agreement. The Plurinational Constitutional Court is reviewing the documents in connection with lawsuits filed by 53 Indigenous communities in the Potosí region challenging the potential impact of the projects on local ecosystems.

At best for Moscow and Beijing, the Bolivian authorities intend to squeeze far more favorable terms out of their partners; at worst, both countries could lose access to South American lithium altogether — and the latter scenario looks more likely. Russia is gradually losing promising mineral resource projects in Latin America, which is exactly why it lobbied so actively for Bolivia as a BRICS partner. So far, that bet isn't paying off. On top of that, the nuclear center project (also under Rosatom's auspices) is moving along in fits and starts. It stalled as early as under L. Arce's cabinet, and there have been no visible improvements since — the issue of payment arrangements remains unresolved, and without that, progress is impossible.

This comes against the backdrop of an agreement reached by President Rodrigo Paz with the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean to provide approximately $3.1 billion. Rodrigo Paz intends to pragmatically take the money and develop trade wherever possible. BRICS countries won't be an exception — but first and foremost, those that won't trigger a backlash from the United States. India fits the bill perfectly. Bolivia is quite willing to cooperate with BRICS on secondary projects, without any political agenda. With Washington ramping up its strategic attention to Latin America under the "Monroe Doctrine," few states in the region are prepared to openly defy Donald Trump by stepping up contacts with BRICS. Bolivia, in its difficult economic situation, is certainly not one of them.