The Shield of the Americas denounces a criminal coup attempt against the president of Bolivia.

The diplomatic and security front of the Western Hemisphere has closed ranks forcefully to stop the institutional destabilization in Bolivia.

The governments that make up the Shield of the Americas coalition issued a joint communiqué formally denouncing the ongoing maneuvers to overthrow the legitimate government of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz.

The group is made up of the United States, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The collective statement represents decisive international backing for the Paz administration in the face of a wave ofmassive riots and road blockades, which, according to the regional alliance, constitute illegitimate tactics.

The member countries ratified their defense of democratic authorities against what they labeled as "cynical efforts" aimed at strangling the supply of food, medicine, and essential resources for citizens through "false roadblocks."

Drug trafficking financing and the shadow of the old order.

The coalition's positioning points directlyat the financial structures of criminality organized as the real promoters of violence in the Bolivian streets.

"The law of the street cannot replace the decision that the majority of Bolivians made at the ballot box to turn the page on two decades of corrupt governments," stated the text published by the Department of State.

Likewise, the official note demands those who are financing these protests with dirty money from drug trafficking and transnational crime be brought to justice."

This collective statement aligns with the stern warnings independently issued by senior Trump Administration officials.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth denounced that the Andean nationis under siege by subversive factorsand ratified the commitment of the nascent Americas Anti-Cartel Coalition (A3C) to prevent "narcoterrorists from profiting from death and destruction in our hemisphere."

For his part, Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized in his official channels that the White House will not tolerate that criminal structures depose leaders elected by popular vote, a position seconded by Undersecretary of State Christopher Landau, who defined the current protests as a "coup d'état" financed by a "perverse alliance between politics and organized crime."

The internal factor: market reforms and the retreat of Evo Morales.

Social unrest in La Paz and other major cities in the country has worsened following the deep free-market economic reforms promoted by President Rodrigo Paz in his first six months in office.

The Bolivian administration eliminated state fuel subsidies, generating a 90% increase in fuel prices, and promoted an agrarian reform aimed at boosting the productivity of agro-industry, measures that unleashed resistance from indigenous agricultural sectors and transporters in an environment marked by inflation.

The unrest led this same week to the resignationof the local defense minister, Marcelo Salinas.

The road gridlock situation has been seized upon by Bolivian socialist and fugitive from justice Evo Morales to demand the call for early electionswithin 90 days, threatening total paralysisif the government resorts to militarization.

Morales has been in hiding for almost two years in the coca-growing area of the Chapare in order to evade a judicial arrest warrant against him for serious crimes of human trafficking and child abuse, accusations that the socialist leader rejects as political.

In view of this panorama, the thirteen signatory nations of the Shield of the Americas exhorted the sectors that have legitimate demands to channel them through the mechanisms of dialogue arranged by the Bolivian executive, urging them to publicly denounce and dissociate themselves from the radical factions that seek to instrumentalize social causes to reinstate the old communist status quo in the nation.