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War Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said the United States remains committed to helping defend Bolivia’s fragile government amid ongoing warnings of a coup d’état.
In a post on X, Hegseth said the War Department and the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C), a recently established multinational military and political alliance, reject all attempts to overthrow the government of Rodrigo Paz Pereira a mere six months into his term.
“The United States is watching. Bolivia must not allow itself to fall prey to the old status quo of narco-terrorist dominance in the region,” Hegseth wrote. “We will continue to support our A3C partners like Bolivia to ensure that narco-terrorists are deterred from profiting on death and destruction in our hemisphere.”
PETE HEGSETH MAKES HOMELAND SECURITY TOP MISSION IN FIRST INTERVIEW AS SECRETARY OF WAR
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue security summit in Singapore on May 30, 2026. On Thursday, Hegseth reaffirmed the Trump administration’s support for Bolivia’s fragile government amid mass protests. (Edgar Su/Reuters)
Bolivia’s capital, La Paz, has been rocked by weeks of social unrest as mass protests have blocked streets in major cities amid economic inflation and rising fuel prices.
Bolivian Defense Minister Marcelo Salinas resigned Tuesday.
Upon taking office, Paz supported a land reform bill to boost agribusiness that Indigenous farmers said put them at risk of eviction. He further scrapped fuel subsidies, sending prices surging by nearly 90%. Motorists complained that the gasoline was contaminated and ruined their cars.
The Trump administration has said drug traffickers are responsible for inciting the mass unrest.
RUBIO IDENTIFIES ‘SINGLE MOST SERIOUS THREAT’ TO THE US FROM WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Police officers fired tear gas at community members who seized the Humberto Suarez oil facility during protests calling for President Rodrigo Paz’s resignation in Santa Rosa del Sara, Bolivia, on June 3, 2026. The protests have caused fuel and food shortages. (Ipa Ibanez/Reuters)
“Let there be no mistake: the United States stands squarely in support of Bolivia’s legitimate constitutional government,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote Wednesday on X. “We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.”
“Let us not make any mistake about that; it is a coup financed by this perverse alliance between politics and organized crime across the region,” Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said Tuesday, stating that the protests were part of an ongoing “coup d’état.”
Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz delivers a speech in La Paz on June 3, 2026, after naming Ernesto Justiniano as defense minister following the resignation of Marcelo Salinas amid protests. (Claudia Morales/Reuters)
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Meanwhile, former President Evo Morales, the country’s first Indigenous president who ruled for an unprecedented 14 years, is calling for early elections. “Paz only has two paths left: a suicidal decision like militarization or … an election in the next 90 days,” he wrote on X.
For almost two years now, Morales has been hiding out in Bolivia’s central coca-growing Chapare region, evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges relating to allegedly having sex with a 15-year-old girl. He rejects the allegations as politically motivated.