Bolivia Ends Fuel Subsidies
Dec. 18, 2025
Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz announced that the country will get rid of its fuel subsidies, ending 20 years of fixed prices under MAS leadership. Today he unveiled a far-reaching emergency decree also set out a roadmap to stabilize public finances and attract foreign investment.
James Bosworth argues that this is absolutely needed to resolve Bolivia’s fiscal mess and fuel shortages, but will also “be wildly unpopular and disruptive.” (Latin America Risk Report)
The emergency decree did not specify any details on lithium or a currency swap agreement with the United States, reports Reuters.
The U.S. welcomed the reforms, saying the changes would encourage investment that could benefit both countries, reports Reuters.
Bolivia’s Paz administration is seeking a financial lifeline from the U.S. as well as opening its vast lithium reserves to foreign investors, Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo told the Wall Street Journal. “We’ve discussed the possibility of having a swap, taking the example of Argentina,” he said.
(A Little) Pushback Against Trump’s Venezuela Escalation
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called on the United Nations to “prevent any bloodshed” in Venezuela, yesterday. “The United Nations has been conspicuously absent,” she told reporters. Sheinbaum also called for de-escalation and offered Mexico as a venue for any potential negotiations or meetings between Venezuela and the U.S. (Guardian)
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva also voiced concern about “Trump’s attitudes towards Latin America, about the threats,” Lula said at a ministerial meeting, adding that he urged dialogue between Caracas and Washington in a call with Trump this month. “The power of the word can outweigh the power of the gun ... I said to Trump: ‘If you are interested in talking to Venezuela properly, we can contribute. Now, you have to be willing to talk, you have to be patient,’” Lula said. (Reuters)
China expressed support for Venezuela yesterday, as foreign minister Wang Yi told his Venezuelan counterpart that Beijing opposes “unilateral bullying” and supports countries in safeguarding their own sovereignty. (Guardian)
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it hoped that U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration would not make a fatal mistake over Venezuela and said Moscow was concerned about U.S. decisions that threatened international shipping, after Trump announced a blockade of sanctioned oil. (Reuters)
Trump cited the lost U.S. investments in Venezuela when asked about his newest tactic in a pressure campaign against Maduro — the oil blockade — “suggesting his administration’s moves are at least somewhat motivated by disputes over oil investments, along with accusations of drug trafficking,” reports the Associated Press.
U.S. claims that Venezuela stole oil assets through nationalization “play into a core tenet of the Bolivarian revolutionary movement started in Venezuela by Hugo Chávez, Mr. Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, in the 1990s: that the United States is plotting to seize Venezuela’s oil,” reports the New York Times.
There has been an effective embargo in place after the U.S. seized a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last week, with loaded vessels carrying millions of barrels of oil idling in Venezuelan waters rather than risk seizure, reports Reuters.
Yesterday Maduro ordered his navy to escort ships carrying petroleum products from port, risking a confrontation with the United States on the high seas as he defied Trump’s declaration of a “blockade” aimed at the country’s sanctioned oil industry, reports the New York Times.
The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a pair of resolutions that would have forced Trump to go to Congress for approval before attacking Venezuela and to continue his campaign of striking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, reports the New York Times.
The US military killed four more people in another lethal strike on a vessel it said was engaged in drug trafficking in the eastern Pacific, yesterday, reports the Guardian. (See yesterday’s post.)
More Donroe Doctrine
The Trump administration’s policy of strikes against alleged drug smuggling vessels evolved from homeland security adviser Stephen Miller’s hardline plans for Mexico, thwarted by the Sheinbaum administration’s operations to curb cartel power, reports the Washington Post.
Trump allies are “quietly working behind the scenes to invite opposition leader María Corina Machado to visit the White House, multiple people told Semafor.”
Brazil
Brazilian lawmakers approved legislation that could reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro will spend in prison for attempting a military coup after he lost the 2022 election, reports the Washington Post.
Lula has promised to veto the bill though he acknowledged his veto could be overridden by the largely conservative congress. Investigations showed Lula was the target of an assassination plan as part of the coup plot Bolsonaro participated in, reports the Guardian.
Regional Relations
Farmers in tractors blocked roads and set off fireworks in Brussels outside a European Union leaders’ summit, protesting against a major free-trade deal with the Mercosur bloc. (Associated Press)
Lula threatened to walk away from a long-negotiated Mercosur trade deal with the EU after France and Italy sought to delay a vote to approve the agreement. “We’ve conceded everything that diplomacy could possibly concede,” he said, noting that discussions have been ongoing for 26 years. (Financial Times)
“The United States and Paraguay have signed a military framework that allows U.S. personnel to carry out agreed activities in Paraguay, a move officials frame as a boost against organized crime but one that could strain ties with Brazil,” according to the Rio Times.
Ecuador
The United States announced a temporary deployment of Air Force personnel to Ecuador to combat drug trafficking in one of Latin America’s biggest narcotics smuggling hubs, yesterday. (Le Monde)
Regional
“Organized crime has become an existential threat to the uncontacted Indigenous peoples of the Amazon as illegal gold miners, drug traffickers, loggers, and poachers advance ever deeper into the world’s largest rainforest,” reports InSight Crime.
Haiti
A new International Crisis Group report documents how Haiti’s gang coalition, Viv Ansanm, has extended its territorial reach, expanded its illicit rackets and pushed the country to a fresh peak of violence. As a new international “Gang Suppression Force” readies for deployment, “gangs increasingly claim they are fighting to defend the poorest from predatory elites.”
Honduras
The U.S. Department of State demanded that Honduras’ National Electoral Council immediately begin a manual count of ballots from last month’s presidential election. The electoral council has blamed protests for preventing it from starting the manual count of hundreds of thousands of ballots that it said showed inconsistencies and were therefore excluded from the initial tally, reports Reuters.
El Salvador
A Salvadoran court sentenced an environmental lawyer and a community leader to three years in prison for protesting near President Nayib Bukele’s home, but granted them a conditional release. Lawyer Alejandro Henriquez and evangelical pastor Jose Angel Perez had been detained since May, reports AFP.
Critter Corner
A cave in the Dominican Republic concealed thousands of years worth of animal bones regurgitated by giant owls, which had been turned into nests by prehistoric bees - New York Times
Conservationists have turned an uninhabited Caribbean islet near Anguilla into a lively “love nest” for critically endangered Lesser Antillean iguanas, where the lizards are now thriving and multiplying after being reintroduced there, reports the Associated Press.