This week, Bolivia has agreed to cooperate with Brazil and the USA on drug enforcement operations. Relations between Bolivia and the USA are undergoing its worst relationship ever; not even under Garcia-Mesa government they were so tight and precarious. The DEA was expelled from Bolivia, the American Ambassador was asked to leave; only consular activities remain officially, the Deputy Chief of Mission remains on low profile. On top of that USAID and NAS continue to be questioned and some government congress people have started a process to also expel these two agencies.

This tri-lateral agreement, certainly, it is a clear sign of improvement that the Bolivian government acknowledges that fighting crime is not a unilateral task. This coordination will help us fight cocaine trafficking. So, how people are reacting to this? They approve of course, although inevitably a question arises: “why do we have $300 million dollars to purchase a Chinese satellite and can not come up with $150 thousand for a GPS, if the government despises the empire?” Given the notorious anti-American sentiment from current government, this question remains in the air. Despite those questions, it is good that countries work together to fight narcotrafficking.

Along with that, Bolivia lost its chance to reach American markets competitively, mainly for textile and leather products. As a result of increased coca crop hectares; finding many small towns (and even El Alto city) around the country with coca paste production and storage; increased number of one engine planes crashed with evident signs of narcotics activity: Bolivia lost access to ATPDEA. Bolivian entrepreneurs are questioning those ATPDEA requirements; they believe they should be able to export without being “punished” for how the coca-cocaine is developing. It could be morally arguable to say that if someone wants to help a developing nation to overcome poverty, incentives should be given to legal industries. Thus, generating legal income would in turn attract more people from illicit to licit activities, and so on.

Unfortunately, Bolivian people fail to understand how hard it is to compete with other suppliers who have same product quality, if not better. For one, Bolivian products fail to compete on quantity demands and most of all to be able to comply with dates; we are very fragile in terms of transporting our goods, lack of a cold chain and most of all uncertainty that our roads will not be blocked any day.

We as Bolivians could ask for understanding from the USA and not being questioned for failing to comply with ATPDEA requirements. But we neglect to understand that it is USA policy, any tax break they give to any country has to come up from what they citizens forego. Taxpayers in the USA are becoming more exigent and harsher in terms on how those monies are spent. Bolivian entrepreneurs may ask and even resent those ATPDEA requirements, but
there is nothing to do on that issue. They should understand the reality and
move on.

Let us find other alternatives, become more competitive and in order to do that, Bolivian entrepreneurs and foreign investors should ask for help and clear rules to our government. Enough with asking outside for a hand, we should work with what we have, and whatever is we can do, we should do it together. Government should enforce contraband control, should provide tax breaks on industrial machinery being imported, provide legal grounds for safe investment; government should have a better control on corruption and dedicate to improve road infrastructure, education and health facilities. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, there are enough successful examples out there that we can use. The private sector should be more competitive, reinvesting their proceeds; investing on their personnel so they are more effective and stay with them.

A final note, Santa Cruz for the last two decades was the example to follow, it grew economically and physically. Recent figures on GDP show that we are in 4^th place within Bolivia’s nine departments. So, what happened? Social unrest, road blockades, floods, drought, export bans, uncertainty over the economic model to follow, nationalizations, etc. were some of the reasons why Santa Cruz department fell down from 1^st to 4^th position. This is only a reflection of what happened with Bolivia; it is not that the other departments grew up more. It is not because of high international prices of our natural resources. It is simply that we do not have clear rules and legislation; we are not sustainable now. This
needs to change. All the turmoil that Bolivian citizens had to endure last two weeks is just a symptom, not the illness; the latter can kill our fragile economy.