Cables Investigation
Bolivia's Critical Minerals
When the United States signs a Memorandum of Understanding on "critical minerals" with Bolivia, it is not signing only about lithium.
By Violeta Ayala — Researcher
Data on the Bolivian subsoil
48 of the world's 60 critical minerals are in our territory.
When the United States signs a Memorandum of Understanding on "critical minerals" with Bolivia, it is not signing only about lithium. It is signing about all 48. This is the map.
Definition
What is a critical mineral?
The United States defines a "critical mineral" by law, in the Energy Act of 2021. It is not a geological category. It is a strategic one: the list names what its economy and its military need and do not control. A mineral enters the list when it meets three conditions.
They need it
The mineral is essential to the economy or the national security of the United States: semiconductors, batteries, turbines, optical fiber, defense systems.
They don't control it
Its supply chain can be disrupted: few producing countries, concentrated processing (often in China), geopolitical risk.
They can't replace it
Its absence has significant consequences: there is no viable short-term replacement for the function it performs.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) updates the list periodically. The 2025 version includes 60 minerals. Each one is there because Washington needs it and does not control it. Bolivia has documented presence in 48 of the 60.
By level of presence
Four categories. One conversation.
Interactive map
Tap a department to see its minerals.
Bolivia is divided into nine departments. Each with its own geology, its own extractive history, its own communities. The subsoil does not respect those borders. The minerals spread according to geological formations that predate modern states by hundreds of millions of years.
Selected department
All departments
48 minerals with documented presence in Bolivia
Tap a department on the map to see which critical minerals are there, or explore the full list below.
The 60 USGS 2025 critical minerals
Each with its history. Its use. Its context.
Tap any mineral to see what it's for, where it is in Bolivia, and why it matters. When you open a mineral, its departments light up on the map. Search by name, symbol, or department.
Why it matters
The April 27 MOU is not about lithium. It is about the 48.
On April 27, 2026, in Washington, Mining Minister Marco Antonio Calderón de la Barca signed a Memorandum of Understanding on critical minerals with US Deputy Assistant Secretary Caleb Orr.
The text of the agreement was not published. Not on state.gov, not by the Bolivian Mining Ministry. For comparison: the equivalent MOUs the United States signed with Peru, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Malaysia, and the United Kingdom were published in full. With Bolivia, they were not.
The agreement is called the Critical Minerals MOU. It covers the 60 minerals the United States identifies as essential to its economy and national security. Of those 60, Bolivia has documented presence in 48.
Six weeks after the signing, the US Department of War came out in military support of the Bolivian government against internal protests, calling demonstrators "narco-terrorists," demonstrators who include miners, teachers, farmers, and transport workers. The timeline is not a coincidence.
We are not signing an agreement. We are signing a map.
When a power signs in haste, with no public text, without passing through Congress, without consulting the salt flat communities or the Indigenous peoples of the Chiquitanía and the Pantanal where the rare earth projects sit, what is given up is not a mineral. It is the future capacity to decide what to do with the entire portfolio.
The questions the Bolivian Congress and the people should be asking are not about the price of lithium. They are about the full terms of the agreement, the technology transfer mechanisms, the minimum percentages of local added value, the prior consultation with salt flat communities, and the transparency of the specific contracts that will come under this framework.
Lithium can wait. Democracy cannot.
