Bolivia: Foreign Relations

Bolivia's foreign relations have long been shaped by its landlocked geography and a decades-long rupture with Chile. The two countries severed diplomatic ties at the ambassadorial level in 1978 after failing to resolve a dispute stemming from Bolivia's loss of its Pacific coastline in the War of the Pacific, a grievance that has colored much of the country's foreign policy since. Bolivia is a member of the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, and the Andean Community, and depends on neighboring countries, including Chile and Peru, for access to seaports.

For much of the two decades before 2025, under the Movement for Socialism governments of Evo Morales and his successors, Bolivia's foreign policy tilted toward the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America and closer alignment with Cuba, Venezuela, and China, while relations with the United States grew distant; Bolivia expelled the US ambassador in 2008 and later ended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

That posture shifted after Rodrigo Paz took office as president in November 2025. His government restored ambassadorial relations with Washington, reopened the country to the DEA, and signaled interest in deeper cooperation on agriculture, mining, and security. Bolivia and Chile have also moved toward rapprochement, with the two countries' foreign ministers agreeing in 2026 to deepen bilateral ties and pursue a joint economic agenda after nearly five decades without ambassadors in each other's capitals.