Cables Infrastructure
The Critical Minerals of Bolivia. Part 2
By Violeta Ayala — Tecnóloga
Update · Data on Bolivia's subsoil
47 of the world's 60 critical minerals are in our territory.
The world needs them. Governments negotiate them in silence: the previous one with China and Russia, this one with the United States. This map shows what Bolivia holds, where it sits and what each mineral is for. Transparency starts with knowing what we have.
Definition
What is a critical mineral?
The United States defines "critical mineral" by law, in the Energy Act of 2020. It is a strategic category: 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 indispensable to the US economy or national security: semiconductors, batteries, turbines, fiber optics, defense systems.
They do not control it
Its supply chain can break: few producing countries, concentrated processing (often in China), geopolitical risk.
They cannot replace it
Its absence carries significant consequences: no viable short-term replacement exists for the function it serves.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) keeps the list current. The final 2025 version, published in the Federal Register in November 2025, includes 60 minerals. Each one is there because Washington needs it and does not control it. Bolivia has documented presence in 47 of the 60.
By level of presence
Four categories. One single conversation.
Interactive map
Tap a department to see its minerals.
Bolivia divides into nine departments, each with its own geology, its own extractive history, its own communities. The minerals follow geological formations that predate modern states by hundreds of millions of years.
Selected department
All departments
47 minerals with documented presence in Bolivia
Tap a department on the map to see which critical minerals are there, or browse 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 is for, where it sits in Bolivia and why it matters. Opening a mineral highlights its departments on the map. Search by name, symbol or department.
Transparency
The text was never published. The silence is part of the deal.
The fact
On April 27, 2026, in Washington, Mining Minister Marco Antonio Calderón de la Barca and Assistant Secretary of State Caleb Orr signed a Critical Minerals MOU. The name invokes the full list: the 60 minerals the United States deems essential to its economy and national security. Bolivia has documented presence in 47. Nothing in what was announced limits the scope to lithium.
More than two months later, the text remains unpublished. It does not appear on state.gov. It does not appear on the Ministry of Mining site. It does not appear on any official Bolivian platform.
The anomaly
The United States knows how to publish. The critical minerals agreement with Japan was published in full in 2023. The minerals agreement with Ukraine was published in full in 2025. The 2024 MOU with Peru came with an official State Department release describing its scope. The MOU with Bolivia was announced with a social media post. The text, to this day, stays hidden.
What explains the silence
01 · The scope
The deal was presented as a step to attract lithium investment. A published text would show a general framework over the full portfolio of strategic minerals in Bolivia's subsoil. The silence protects the sectoral version.
02 · The habit
The previous government signed contracts with Russia's Uranium One and the Chinese consortium CBC that carried confidentiality clauses. The communities of Nor Lípez learned about the texts through social media. Prior consultation never came. In Bolivia, confidentiality is the rule.
03 · The format
A treaty goes through the Legislative Assembly. An MOU goes around it. The contracts that will come under this framework will touch Indigenous territories in the salar, the Chiquitanía and the Pantanal, and the Constitution requires free, prior and informed consultation. The silence postpones that debate.
04 · The promise
This government arrived criticizing the opacity of the contracts with China and Russia. Its own Economy Minister said they were approved without transparency or public consultation. The MOU with the United States repeats the method the government condemned.
The flags change. The silence stays the same.
What is at stake
The MOU sets the framework for the contracts to come, and those contracts will be binding. Without the text, no one knows what technology transfer mechanisms it includes, what share of local value added it requires, what obligations Bolivia assumes and what rights it hands over. Whoever signs in silence hands over the power to decide over the entire portfolio.
Six weeks after the signing, the US War Department backed the Bolivian government against internal protests and called the demonstrators narco-terrorists. The chronology is no coincidence.
What should happen
The Legislative Assembly must demand the full text. The communities of the salar, the Chiquitanía and the Pantanal must be consulted. The debate must be public. Negotiation happens with the doors open.
Lithium can wait. Democracy cannot.
