...U.S. hegemony and renewed imperialist pressure in Latin America. Across the region, the crises facing governments like Paz in Bolivia, Milei in Argentina, and Kast in Chile are intensifying, making the question of how to defeat the pro-imperialist Right increasingly urgent and concrete.
Over the past few weeks, the key question in Bolivia has been whether we are witnessing the beginning of a counteroffensive in the streets against the new right-wing wave in Latin America.
President Rodrigo Paz has been in power for just over six months and is already facing a rebellion that has been brewing since the beginning of the year, despite government repression and the labor bureaucracy’s betrayal of the rank and file. His administration is planning to raise fuel prices and attack education and health care while cutting taxes for big business. It is also seeking to encroach on peasant and indigenous lands, plunder lithium, and deepen the country’s subjugation to the IMF and imperialism. But resistance has been fierce: from December to January, the country saw three weeks of roadblocks and demonstrations. Now it is facing a full-scale rebellion of workers, peasants, and the masses.
On May 16, the government’s repression against these mobilizations left four dead. But the outcome was the opposite of what the Paz government intended: the next day, there were even more roadblocks, and the following Monday, a massive march descended from El Alto to La Paz with the slogan “Paz Out.” From May 22 to 24, more protests and roadblocks took place across the country, which the government failed to break up thanks to worker resistance. On the 25th, a new day of mobilization took place from El Alto to La Paz — the largest in recent weeks — incorporating new sectors into the conflict.
The Trump administration has come out in full force to back Paz, as have Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Argentinean president Javier Milei; the latter is sending Hercules transport planes to aid the Bolivian government. This support is unsurprising, given that what is happening in Bolivia raises the prospect of defeating pro-imperialist, right-wing governments in the streets. Amid imperialism’s growing offensive in the region, the U.S. fears that the Bolivian rebellion could take down one of its pawns. This must also be understood in the context of competition with China, as Washington seeks to reassert geopolitical control over what it has long considered its backyard. And Bolivia is a strategic area: it forms part of the Lithium Triangle, along with Chile and Argentina.
With his new National Security Strategy, Trump has launched his own Monroe Doctrine. In Venezuela he established a quasi-protectorate with the help of Delcy Rodríguez. Now he is putting extreme pressure on the Cuban people, who might possibly face a direct attack. On May 20 there was a two-pronged operation: Raúl Castro was charged with murder over the downing of two light aircraft in 1996, and the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was deployed to the Caribbean.
Trump has been weakened by his defeats against Iran and is facing significant opposition at home; his approval rating stands at a low of 35 percent. The decline of U.S. hegemony is accelerating, which is driving the country toward more aggressive interventions against the peoples of the region. A defeat of the Paz government in the streets would, in this context, be a severe blow to the region’s ruling classes and to U.S. imperialism.
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