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FTR #1104 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
FTR #1105 This program was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: These programs highlight features of an apparent coup d’etat in Bolivia, emphasizing the individuals and institutions figuring in the coup itself, as well as the underlying dynamic of the development of Bolivia’s enormous lithium reserves. Central to the discussion is the fact that lithium is essential for the development of electric car batteries and that technology is important to any successful “Greening” of the global economy.
Fascists from Latin America and Europe networked with transnational corporate elements and some U.S. intelligence cut-outs to oust Evo Morales and his government.
Although Morales had violated constitutional norms on term limits in order to extend his governance, his political agenda had greatly benefited Bolivia’s poor and its historically oppressed indigenous population, in particular. The country’s mineral wealth has been exploited by foreign companies and select members of the Bolivian elite to the detriment of much of the population. Even the conservative Financial Times has noted that Morales restructuring of the Bolivian economy–mineral extraction, in particular–has significantly improved the country’s economy and reduced poverty.
This element of discussion involves many subjects covered at length over the decades and featured in the archives:
- Material about Klaus Barbie and the European fascists in his “Fiances of Death” (or “Bridegrooms of Death”) mercenaries can be found in, among other programs, AFA #‘s 19 and 27.
- The Vatican’s relationship to fascism, including Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croatia, is highlighted in, among other programs AFA #17.
- Information about the re-emergence of the Ustachi can be found in, among other programs, FTR #‘s 49, 154, 766, 901.
Key individual and institutional players in the development of, prelude to, and execution of the Bolivian coup include:
-
- Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy Bolivian described in the Panama Papers, Camacho is: ” . . . . an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. . . .”
- He is heir to a tradition of wealth, the nation’s natural gas business, in particular: : ” . . . . Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent. . . .”
- Prior to the coup, Camacho: ” . . . . met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted gratitude: ‘Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!’ he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!’ . . .”
- A marginal figure with little public gravitas, including on social media, Camacho was moving to neutralize the Morales government before the coup itself.
- His political presence and base of support is a Christian fascist organization: ” . . . . Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology. . . .”
- The UJC: ” . . . . The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS, and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West. And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes. . . . Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described UJC members as ‘racist’ and ‘militant,’ noting that they ‘have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.’ . . .”
- Camacho was allied with a wealthy Croatian named Branko Marinkovic: ” . . . . Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic. . . .”
- Marinkovic is one of the prime movers of a secessionist movement for the Santa Cruz area: ” . . . . Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist power broker Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia. In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced the committee as an ‘actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.’ The human rights group added that it ‘condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.’ In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. . . .”
- There has been speculation that Marinkovich may be descended from Croatian Ustachis fascists: ” . . . . But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the ‘shadow CIA,’ produced a rough background profile on Marinkovic, speculating, ‘Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWII.’ . . . .”
- The coup follows by some years an attempt by a group of international fascists to murder Morales: ” . . . . In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer, who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before. The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. . . .”
- Eduardo Rosza-Flores had fought in the former Yugoslavia on behalf of the neo-Ustachi regime that ultimately came to power: ” . . . . During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the ‘PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups, from Germany to Ireland.’ By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. . . .”
- Rosza-Flores had no money, yet his group of would-be fascist assassins were well funded. Marinkovic appears to have been among the funding sources: ” . . . . Marinkovic was subsequently charged with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil, where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar. . . .”
- Hugo Acha Melgar was networked with the Human Rights Foundation, a right-wing organization with strong links to U.S. intelligence and financed in part by Peter Thiel. The Human Rights Foundation is involved in the Hong Kong turmoil. ” . . . . Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. . . . . He launched the HRF with grants from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America. . . .”
- Proxy presidential candidate Carlos Mesa is heavily networked with the Inter-American Dialogue, financed in considerable measure by the AID: ” . . . . Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID) . . . .”
- Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy Bolivian described in the Panama Papers, Camacho is: ” . . . . an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. . . .”
Central to the multi-national dissatisfaction with Evo Morales is his nationalization of some of Bolivia’s mineral resource industry. And central to the Bolivian mineral resource inventory is lithium, essential for the manufacture of electric car batteries: ” . . . . The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car. . . .”
Salar de Uyuni lithium/salt flats.
Bolivia has been reported to hold up to 70 percent of the world’s lithium, and the Morales government’s pivot toward developing those reserves in tandem with Chinese firms, rather than Western transnationals, may well have been the central dynamic in his ouster. ” . . . . Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the ‘fuel that will feed the world.’ Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash. . . .”
The complexities of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats–location of much of Bolivia’s lithium reserves–mandate the technological involvement of foreign firms. A deal reached with German ACI Systems (heavily subsidized by the German government) was negated by protests on the part of local residents in the Salar de Uyuni area. Chinese firms were poised to fill that vacuum, offering the possibility of a more equitable development of the mineral. ” . . . . Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019. Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies. . . .”
After the ouster of Morales, the value of Tesla’s stock increased dramatically.
The ACI/Bolivia deal had heavy backing by the German government and featured the planned export of lithium to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. ” . . . . With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia. ACI Systems is also in talks to supply companies based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe with lithium from Bolivia. . . . Wolfgang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the parent company of ACI Systems, said more than 80 percent of the lithium would be exported to Germany. . . .”
Of particular significance for the discussion to follow is ” . . . . China’s dominance in the global lithium supply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. . . .”
Shortly after the ouster of Morales, Tesla announced that Tesla would locate a new car and electric battery factory near Berlin. If the ACI lithium development project in Bolivia is resuscitated, the Tesla move will give the firm access to the Bolivian lithium.
Might that have been the reason for the rise in Tesla’s stock? Might there have been some insider trading?
The programs conclude with review of the rebirth of Cambridge Analytica as a synthesis with British “psy-op” development firm SCL. A key director of Emerdata–the new firm–is a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Blackwater chief Erik Prince, the brother of Trump Secretary of Education Betsy de Vos. Noting the firm formerly known as Blackwater’s deep involvement in the world of covert operations and former Cambridge Analytica lynchpin Steve Bannon’s pivotal role in the anti-China movement, it is not unreasonable to ask if Emerdata may be involved in the Hong Kong turmoil.
We also review China’s leadership in the development of Green technologies.
1. A coup d’etat has taken place in Bolivia, with fascists from Latin America and Europe networking with transnational corporate elements to oust Evo Morales and his government.
Although Morales had violated constitutional norms on term limits in order to extend his governance, his political agenda had greatly benefited Bolivia’s poor and its historically oppressed indigenous population, in particular. The country’s mineral wealth has been exploited by foreign companies and select members of the Bolivian elite to the detriment of much of the population. Even the conservative Financial Times has noted that Morales restructuring of the Bolivian economy–mineral extraction, in particular–has significantly improved the country’s economy and reduced poverty.
This element of discussion involves many subjects covered at length over the decades and featured in the archives:
- Material about Klaus Barbie and the European fascists in his “Fiances of Death” (or “Bridegrooms of Death”) mercenaries can be found in, among other programs, AFA #‘s 19 and 27.
- The Vatican’s relationship to fascism, including Opus Dei and the Ustachi in Croatia, is highlighted in, among other programs AFA #17.
- Information about the re-emergence of the Ustachi can be found in, among other programs, FTR #‘s 49, 154, 766, 901.
Key individual and institutional players in the development of, prelude to, and execution of the Bolivian coup include:
- Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy Bolivian described in the Panama Papers, Camacho is: ” . . . . an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. . . .”
- He is heir to a tradition of wealth, the nation’s natural gas business, in particular: : ” . . . . Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent. . . .”
- Prior to the coup, Camacho: ” . . . . met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted gratitude: ‘Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!’ he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!’ . . .”
- A marginal figure with little public gravitas, including on social media, Camacho was moving to neutralize the Morales government before the coup itself.
- His political presence and base of support is a Christian fascist organization: ” . . . . Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology. . . .”
- The UJC: ” . . . . The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS, and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West. And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes. . . . Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described UJC members as ‘racist’ and ‘militant,’ noting that they ‘have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.’ . . .”
- Camacho was allied with a wealthy Croatian named Branko Marinkovic: ” . . . . Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic. . . .”
- Marinkovic is one of the prime movers of a secessionist movement for the Santa Cruz area: ” . . . . Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist power broker Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia. In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced the committee as an ‘actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.’ The human rights group added that it ‘condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.’ In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. . . .”
- There has been speculation that Marinkovich may be descended from Croatian Ustachis fascists: ” . . . . But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the ‘shadow CIA,’ produced a rough background profile on Marinkovic, speculating, ‘Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWII.’ . . . .”
- Marinkovich’s activism in the Santa Cruz area is part of a fascist political landscape in that area that dovetails with Klaus Barbie (of whom we spoke in–among other programs–AFA #19): ” . . . . In a 2008 profile on Marinkovic, the New York Times acknowledged the extremist undercurrents of the Santa Cruz separatist movement the oligarch presided over. It described the area as “a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the former Spanish dictator Franco.” The Bolivian Socialist Falange was a fascist group that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie during the Cold War. A former Gestapo torture expert, Barbie was repurposed by the CIA through its Operation Condor program to help exterminate communism across the continent. . . .”
- The coup follows by some years an attempt by a group of international fascists to murder Morales: ” . . . . In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer, who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before. The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. . . .”
- Eduardo Rosza-Flores had fought in the former Yugoslavia on behalf of the neo-Ustachi regime that ultimately came to power: ” . . . . During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the ‘PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups, from Germany to Ireland.’ By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. . . .”
- Rosza-Flores had no money, yet his group of would-be fascist assassins were well funded. Marinkovic appears to have been among the funding sources: ” . . . . Marinkovic was subsequently charged with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil, where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar. . . .”
- Hugo Acha Melgar was networked with the Human Rights Foundation, a right-wing organization with strong links to U.S. intelligence and financed in part by Peter Thiel. The Human Rights Foundation is involved in the Hong Kong turmoil. ” . . . . Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. . . . . He launched the HRF with grants from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America. . . .”
- Proxy presidential candidate Carlos Mesa is heavily networked with the Inter-American Dialogue, financed in considerable measure by the AID: ” . . . . Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID) . . . .”
When Luis Fernando Camacho stormed into Bolivia’s abandoned presidential palace in the hours after President Evo Morales’s sudden November 10 resignation, he revealed to the world a side of the country that stood at stark odds with the plurinational spirit its deposed socialist and Indigenous leader had put forward. With a Bible in one hand and a national flag in the other, Camacho bowed his head in prayer above the presidential seal, fulfilling his vow to purge his country’s Native heritage from government and “return God to the burned palace.” “Pachamama will never return to the palace,” he said, referring to the Andean Mother Earth spirit. “Bolivia belongs to Christ.” Bolivia’s extreme right-wing opposition had overthrown leftist President Evo Morales that day, following demands by the country’s military leadership that he step down. Virtually unknown outside his country, where he had never won a democratic election, Camacho stepped into the void.
He is a rich and powerful multi-millionaire named in the Panama Papers, and an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist groomed by a fascist paramilitary notorious for its racist violence, with a base in Bolivia’s wealthy separatist region of Santa Cruz. Camacho also hails from a family of corporate elites who have long profited from Bolivia’s plentiful natural gas reserves. And his family lost part of its wealth when Morales nationalized the nation’s resources, in order to fund his vast social programs — which cut poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent.
In the lead-up to the coup, Camacho met with leaders from right-wing governments in the region to discuss their plans to destabilize Morales. Two months before the putsch, he tweeted gratitude: “Thank you Colombia! Thank you Venezuela!” he exclaimed, tipping his hat to Juan Guaido’s coup operation. He also recognized the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro, declaring, “Thank you Brazil!” Camacho had spent years leading an overtly fascist separatist organization. The Grayzone edited the following clips from a promotional historical documentary that the group posted on its own social media accounts:The rich oligarch leader of Bolivia’s right-wing coup, Luis Fernando Camacho, was the leader of an explicitly fascist paramilitary group. Here are some clips from a promotional historical documentary it published:https://t.co/gFMyfjsi2p pic.twitter.com/XXNQfhD7ii — The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) November 12, 2019While Camacho and his far-right forces served as the muscle behind the coup, their political allies waited to reap the benefits. The presidential candidate Bolivia’s opposition had fielded in the October election, Carlos Mesa, is a “pro-business” privatizer with extensive ties to Washington. US government cables published by WikiLeaks reveal that he regularly corresponded with American officials in their efforts to destabilize Morales. Mesa is currently listed as an expert at a DC-based think tank funded by the US government’s soft-power arm USAID, various oil giants, and a host of multi-national corporations active in Latin America.
Evo Morales, a former farmer who rose to prominence in social movements before becoming the leader of the powerful grassroots political party Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), was Bolivia’s first Indigenous leader. Wildly popular in the country’s substantial Native and peasant communities, he won numerous elections and democratic referenda over a 13-year period, often in landslides. On October 20, Morales won re-election by more than 600,000 votes, giving him just above the 10 percent margin needed to defeat opposition presidential candidate Mesa in the first round. Experts who did a statistical analysis of Bolivia’s publicly available voting data found no evidence of irregularities or fraud. But the opposition claimed otherwise, and took to the streets in weeks of protests and riots. The events that precipitated the resignation of Morales were indisputably violent. Right-wing opposition gangs attacked numerous elected politicians from the ruling leftist MAS party. They then ransacked the home of President Morales, while burning down the houses of several other top officials. The family members of some politicians were kidnapped and held hostage until they resigned. A female socialist mayor was publicly tortured by a mob.The squalid US-backed fanatics of the Bolivian right ransack the house of the country’s elected president, Evo Morales. And the havoc is just beginning. Let no one call them “pro-democracy.” pic.twitter.com/rwwvOSAEaA — Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 11, 2019Following the forced departure of Morales, coup leaders arrested the president and vice president of the government’s electoral body, and forced the organization’s other officials to resign. Camacho’s followers proceeded to burn Wiphala flags that symbolized the country’s Indigenous population and the plurinational vision of Morales. The Organization of American States, a pro-US organization founded by Washington during the Cold War as an alliance of right-wing anti-communist countries in Latin America, helped rubber stamp the Bolivian coup. It called for new elections, claiming there were numerous irregularities in the October 20 vote, without citing any evidence. Then the OAS remained silent as Morales was overthrown by his military and his party’s officials were attacked and violently forced to resign.
The day after, the Donald Trump White House enthusiastically praised the coup, trumpeting it as a “significant moment for democracy,” and a “strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua.”
Emerging from the shadows to lead a violent far-right putsch
While Carlos Mesa timidly condemned the opposition’s violence, Camacho egged it on, ignoring calls for an international audit of the election and emphasizing his maximalist demand to purge all supporters of Morales from government. He was the true face of the opposition, concealed for months behind the moderate figure of Mesa. A 40-year-old multi-millionaire businessman from the separatist stronghold of Santa Cruz, Camacho has never run for office.
Like Venezuelan coup leader Juan Guaidó, whom more than 80 percent of Venezuelans had never heard of until the US government anointed him as supposed “president,” Camacho was an obscure figure until the coup attempt in Bolivia hit its stride. He first created his Twitter account on May 27, 2019. For months, his tweets went ignored, generating no more than three or four retweets and likes. Before the election, Camacho did not have a Wikipedia article, and there were few media profiles on him in Spanish- or English-language media. Camacho issued a call for a strike on July 9, posting videos on Twitter that got just over 20 views. The goal of the strike was to try to force the resignation of Bolivian government’s electoral organ the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE). In other words, Camacho was pressuring the government’s electoral authorities to step down more than three months before the presidential election. It was not until after the election that Camacho was thrust into the limelight and transformed into a celebrity by corporate media conglomerates like the local right-wing network Unitel, Telemundo, and CNN en Español.
All of a sudden, Camacho’s tweets calling for Morales to resign were lighting up with thousands of retweets. The coup machinery had been activated. Mainstream outlets like the New York Times and Reuters followed by anointing the unelected Camacho as the “leader” of Bolivia’s opposition. But even as he lapped up international attention, key portions of the far-right activist’s background were omitted. Left unmentioned were Camacho’s deep and well-established connections to Christian extremist paramilitaries notorious for racist violence and local business cartels, as well as the right-wing governments across the region.
It was in the fascist paramilitaries and separatist atmosphere of Santa Cruz where Camacho’s politics were formed, and where the ideological contours of the coup had been defined.
Cadre of a Francoist-style fascist paramilitary
Luis Fernando Camacho was groomed by the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista, or Santa Cruz Youth Union (UJC), a fascist paramilitary organization that has been linked to assassination plots against Morales. The group is notorious for assaulting leftists, Indigenous peasants, and journalists, all while espousing a deeply racist, homophobic ideology. Since Morales entered office in 2006, the UJC has campaigned to separate from a country its members believed had been overtaken by a Satanic Indigenous mass.
The UJC is the Bolivian equivalent of Spain’s Falange, India’s Hindu supremacist RSS, and Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion. Its symbol is a green cross that bears strong similarities to logos of fascist movements across the West. And its members are known to launch into Nazi-style sieg heil salutes.Here is another video posted by Bolivia’s fascist opposition Santa Cruz Youth Union. Coup leader Luis Fernando Camacho @LuisFerCamachoV previously helped lead this sieg-heiling group. These are the people who overthrew elected President Evo Morales. https://t.co/gFMyfjsi2p pic.twitter.com/GvvMfL21UZ — The Grayzone (@GrayzoneProject) November 12, 2019Even the US embassy in Bolivia has described UJC members as “racist” and “militant,” noting that they “have frequently attacked pro-MAS/government people and installations.” [see pic of US embassy document] After journalist Benjamin Dangl visited with UJC members in 2007, he described them as the “brass knuckles” of the Santa Cruz separatist movement. “The Unión Juvenil has been known to beat and whip campesinos marching for gas nationalization, throw rocks at students organizing against autonomy, toss molotov cocktails at the state television station, and brutally assault members of the landless movement struggling against land monopolies,” Dangl wrote. “When we have to defend our culture by force, we will,” a UJC leader told Dangl. “The defense of liberty is more important than life.”
Camacho was elected as vice president of the UJC in 2002, when he was just 23 years old. He left the organization two years later to build his family’s business empire and rise through the ranks of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee. It was in that organization that he was taken under the wing of one of the separatist movement’s most powerful figures, a Bolivian-Croatian oligarch named Branko Marinkovic. In August, Camacho tweeted a photo with his “great friend,” Marinkovic. This friendship was crucial to establishing the rightist activist’s credentials and forging the basis of the coup that would take form three months later.Hoy cumple años un gran líder cruceño y expresidente del Comité pro Santa Cruz pero todo un gran amigo, Branko Marinkovic, quien entregó todo, su libertad y su vida, por su pueblo. pic.twitter.com/uVzNrgH2pI — Luis Fernando Camacho (@LuisFerCamachoV) August 21, 2019Camacho’s Croatian godfather and separatist power broker Branko Marinkovic is a major landowner who ramped up his support for the right-wing opposition after some of his land was nationalized by the Evo Morales government. As chairman of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, he oversaw the operations of the main engine of separatism in Bolivia. In a 2008 letter to Marinkovic, the International Federation for Human Rights denounced the committee as an “actor and promoter of racism and violence in Bolivia.” The human rights group added that it “condemn[ed] the attitude and secessionist, unionist and racist discourses as well as the calls for military disobedience of which the Pro-Santa Cruz Civic Committee for is one of the main promoters.”
In 2013, journalist Matt Kennard reported that the US government was working closely with the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee to encourage the balkanization of Bolivia and to undermine Morales. “What they [the US] put across was how they could strengthen channels of communication,” the vice president of the committee told Kennard. “The embassy said that they would help us in our communication work and they have a series of publications where they were putting forward their ideas.”
In a 2008 profile on Marinkovic, the New York Times acknowledged the extremist undercurrents of the Santa Cruz separatist movement the oligarch presided over. It described the area as “a bastion of openly xenophobic groups like the Bolivian Socialist Falange, whose hand-in-air salute draws inspiration from the fascist Falange of the former Spanish dictator Franco.” The Bolivian Socialist Falange was a fascist group that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie during the Cold War. A former Gestapo torture expert, Barbie was repurposed by the CIA through its Operation Condor program to help exterminate communism across the continent. . . . The Bolivian Falange came into power in 1971 when its leader, Gen. Hugo Banzer Suarez, ousted the leftist government of Gen. Juan Jose Torres Gonzales. The government of Gonzales had infuriated business leaders by nationalizing industries and antagonized Washington by ousting the Peace Corps, which it viewed as an instrument of CIA penetration. The Nixon administration immediately welcomed Banzer with open arms and courted him as a key bulwark against the spread of socialism in the region. (An especially ironic 1973 dispatch appears on Wikileaks showing Secretary of State Henry Kissinger thanking Banzer for congratulating him on his Nobel Peace Prize).
The movement’s putschist legacy persevered during the Morales era through organizations like the UJC and figures such as Marinkovic and Camacho. The Times noted that Marinkovic also supported the activities of the UJC, describing the fascist group as “a quasi-independent arm of the committee led by Mr. Marinkovic.” A member of the UJC board told the US newspaper of record in an interview, “We will protect Branko with our own lives.” Marinkovic has espoused the kind of Christian nationalist rhetoric familiar to the far-right organizations of Santa Cruz, calling, for instance, for a “crusade for the truth” and insisting that God is on his side. The oligarch’s family hails from Croatia, where he has dual citizenship. Marinkovic has long been dogged by rumors that his family members were involved in the country’s powerful fascist Ustashe movement. The Ustashe collaborated openly with Nazi German occupiers during World War Two. Their successors returned to power after Croatia declared independence from the former Yugoslavia – a former socialist country that was intentionally balkanized in a NATO war, much in the same way that Marinkovic hoped Bolivia would be.
Marinkovic denies that his family was part of the Ustashe. He claimed in an interview with the New York Times that his father fought against the Nazis. But even some of his sympathizers are skeptical. A Balkan analyst from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which works closely with the US government and is popularly known as the “shadow CIA,” produced a rough background profile on Marinkovic, speculating, “Still don’t know his full story, but I would bet a lot of $$$ that this dude’s parents are 1st gen (his name is too Slavic) and that they were Ustashe (read: Nazi) sympathizers fleeing Tito’s Communists after WWII.” The Stratfor analyst excerpted a 2006 article by journalist Christian Parenti, who had visited Marinkovic at his ranch in Santa Cruz. Evo Morales’ “land reform could lead to civil war,” Marinkovic warned Parenti in the Texas-accented English he picked up while studying at the University of Texas, Houston.
Today, Marinkovic is an ardent supporter of Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, whose only complaint about Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was that he “didn’t kill enough.” Marinkovic is also a public admirer of Venezuela’s far-right opposition. “Todos somos Leopoldo” — “we are all Leopoldo,” he tweeted in support of Leopoldo López, who has been involved in numerous coup attempts against Venezuela’s elected leftist government. While Marinkovic denied any role in armed militant activity in his interview with Parenti, he was accused in 2008 of playing a central role in an attempt to assassinate Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism party allies. He told the New York Times less than two years before the plot developed, “If there is no legitimate international mediation in our crisis, there is going to be confrontation. And unfortunately, it is going to be bloody and painful for all Bolivians.”
An assassination plot links Bolivia’s right to international fascists.
In April 2009, a special unit of the Bolivian security services barged into a luxury hotel room and cut down three men who were said to be involved in a plot to kill Evo Morales. Two others remained on the loose. Four of the alleged conspirators had Hungarian or Croatian roots and ties to rightist politics in eastern Europe, while another was a right-wing Irishman, Michael Dwyer, who had only arrived in Santa Cruz six months before. The ringleader of the group was said to be a former leftist journalist named Eduardo Rosza-Flores who had turned to fascism and belonged to Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic cult that emerged under the dictatorship of Spain’s Francisco Franco. In fact, the codename Rosza-Flores assumed in the assassination plot was “Franco,” after the late Generalissimo.
During the 1990s, Rosza fought on behalf of the Croatian First International Platoon, or the PIV, in the war to separate from Yugoslavia. A Croatian journalist told Time that the “PIV was a notorious group: 95% of them had criminal histories, many were part of Nazi and fascist groups, from Germany to Ireland.” By 2009, Rosza returned home to Bolivia to crusade on behalf of another separatist movement in Santa Cruz. And it was there that he was killed in a luxury hotel with no apparent source of income and a massive stockpile of guns. The government later released photos of Rosza and a co-conspirator posing with their weapons. Publication of emails between the ringleader and Istvan Belovai, a former Hungarian military intelligence officer who served as a double agent for the CIA, cemented the perception that Washington had a hand in the operation.
Marinkovic was subsequently charged with providing $200,000 to the plotters. The Bolivian-Croatian oligarch initially fled to the United States, where he was given asylum, then relocated to Brazil, where he lives today. He denied any involvement in the plan to kill Morales. As journalist Matt Kennard reported, there was another thread that tied the plot to the US: the alleged participation of an NGO leader named Hugo Achá Melgar. “Rozsa didn’t come here by himself, they brought him,” the Bolivian government’s lead investigator told Kennard. “Hugo Achá Melgar brought him.”
The Human Rights Foundation destabilizes Bolivia
Achá was not just the head of any run-of-the-mill NGO. He had founded the Bolivian subsidiary of the Human Rights Foundation (HRF), an international right-wing outfit that is known for hosting a “school for revolution” for activists seeking regime change in states targeted by the US government. HRF is run by Thor Halvorssen Jr., the son of the late Venezuelan oligarch and CIA asset Thor Halvorssen Hellum. The first cousin of the veteran Venezuelan coup plotter Leopoldo Lopez, Halvorssen was a former college Republican activist who crusaded against political correctness and other familiar right-wing hobgoblins.
After a brief career as a firebrand right-wing film producer, in which he oversaw a scandalous “anti-environmentalist” documentary financed by a mining corporation, Halvorssen rebranded as a promoter of liberalism and the enemy of global authoritarianism. He launched the HRF with grants from right-wing billionaires like Peter Thiel, conservative foundations, and NGOs including Amnesty International. The group has since been at the forefront of training activists for insurrectionary activity from Hong Kong to the Middle East to Latin America.
Though Achá was granted asylum in the US, the HRF has continued pushing regime change in Bolivia. As Wyatt Reed reported for The Grayzone, HRF “freedom fellow” Jhanisse Vaca Daza helped trigger the initial stage of the coup by blaming Morales for the Amazon fires that consumed parts of Bolivia in August, mobilizing international protests against him. At the time, Daza posed as an “environmental activist” and student of non-violence who articulated her concerns in moderate-seeming calls for more international aid to Bolivia. Through her NGO, Rios de Pie, she helped launch the #SOSBolivia hashtag, which signaled the imminent foreign-backed regime-change operation.
Courting the regional right, prepping the coup
While HRF’s Daza rallied protests outside Bolivian embassies in Europe and the US, Fernando Camacho remained behind the scenes, lobbying right-wing governments in the region to bless the coming coup. In May, Camacho met with Colombia’s far-right President Ivan Duque. Camacho was helping to spearhead regional efforts at undermining the legitimacy of Evo Morales’ presidency at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, seeking to block his candidacy in the October election. That same month, the rightist Bolivian agitator also met with Ernesto Araújo, the chancellor of Jair Bolsonaro’s ultra-conservative administration in Brazil. Through the meeting, Camacho successfully secured Bolsonaro’s backing for regime change in Bolivia. This November 10, Araújo enthusiastically endorsed the ouster of Morales, declaring that “Brazil will support the democratic and constitutional transition” in the country. Then in August, two months before Bolivia’s presidential election, Camacho held court with officials from Venezuela’s US-appointed coup regime. These included Gustavo Tarre, Guaido’s faux Venezuelan OAS ambassador, who formerly worked at the right-wing Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington. After the meeting, Camacho tweeted gratitude to the Venezuelan coup-mongers, as well as to Colombia and Brazil.No vamos a parar hasta tener una democracia real! Seguimos avanzando! Vamos sumando apoyo… ahora lo hace Venezuela…Gracias a Dios.. hay esperanza! Gracias Colombia! Gracias Venezuela! Gracias Brasil! pic.twitter.com/v9TQ2Fi2Sa — Luis Fernando Camacho (@LuisFerCamachoV) August 27, 2019Mesa and Camacho: a marriage of capitalist convenience Back in Bolivia, Carlos Mesa occupied the spotlight as the opposition’s presidential candidate. His erudite image and centrist policy proposals put him in a seemingly alternate political universe from fire-breathing rightists like Camacho and Marinkovic. For them, he was a convenient front man and acceptable candidate who promised to defend their economic interests. “It might be that he is not my favorite, but I’m going to vote for him, because I don’t want Evo,” Marinkovic told a right-wing Argentine newspaper five days before the election. Indeed, it was Camacho’s practical financial interests that appeared to have necessitated his support for Mesa. The Camacho family has formed a natural gas cartel in Santa Cruz. As the Bolivian outlet Primera Linea reported, Luis Fernando Camacho’s father, Jose Luis, was the owner of a company called Sergas that distributed gas in the city; his uncle, Enrique, controlled Socre, the company that ran the local gas production facilities; and his cousin, Cristian, controls another local gas distributor called Controgas. According to Primera Linea, the Camacho family was using the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee as a political weapon to install Carlos Mesa into power and ensure the restoration of their business empire.
Mesa has a well-documented history of advancing the goals of transnational companies at the expense of his own country’s population.
The neoliberal politician and media personality served as vice president when the US-backed President Gonzalo “Goni” Sanchez de Lozada provoked mass protests with his 2003 plan to allow a consortium of multinational corporations to export the country’s natural gas to the US through a Chilean port. Bolivia’s US-trained security forces met the ferocious protests with brutal repression. After presiding over the killing of 70 unarmed protesters, Sanchez de Lozada fled to Miami and was succeeded by Mesa. By 2005, Mesa was also ousted by huge demonstrations spurred by his protection of privatized natural gas companies. With his demise, the election of Morales and the rise of the socialist and rural Indigenous movements behind him were just beyond the horizon. US government cables released by WikiLeaks show that, after his ouster, Mesa continued regular correspondence with American officials. A 2008 memo from the US embassy in Bolivia revealed that Washington was conspiring with opposition politicians in the lead-up to the 2009 presidential election, hoping to undermine and ultimately unseat Morales.
The memo noted that Mesa had met with the chargé d’affaires of the US embassy, and had privately told them he planned to run for president. The cable recalled: “Mesa told us his party will be ideologically similar to a social democratic party and that he hoped to strengthen ties with the Democratic party. ‘We have nothing against the Republican party, and have in fact gotten support from IRI (International Republican Institute) in the past, but we think we share more ideology with the Democrats,’ he added.” [see pic of wikileaks document] Today, Mesa serves as an in-house “expert” at the Inter-American Dialogue, a neoliberal Washington-based think tank focused on Latin America. One of the Dialogue’s top donors is the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the State Department subsidiary that was exposed in classified diplomatic cables published on Wikileaks for strategically directing millions of dollars to opposition groups including those “opposed to Evo Morales’ vision for indigenous communities.” Other top funders of the Dialogue include oil titans like Chevron and ExxonMobil; Bechtel, which inspired the initial protests against the administration in which Mesa served; the Inter-American Development Bank, which has forcefully opposed Morales’ socialist-oriented policies; and the Organization of American States (OAS), which helped delegitimize the Morales’s re-election victory with dubious claims of irregular vote counts. . . . ———-
2a. Central to the multi-national dissatisfaction with Evo Morales is his nationalization of some of Bolivia’s mineral resource industry. And central to the Bolivian mineral resource inventory is lithium, essential for the manufacture of electric car batteries: ” . . . . The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car. . . .”
Bolivia has been reported to hold up to 70 percent of the world’s lithium, and the Morales government’s pivot toward developing those reserves in tandem with Chinese firms, rather than Western transnationals, may well have been the central dynamic in his ouster. ” . . . . Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the ‘fuel that will feed the world.’ Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash. . . .”
The complexities of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats–location of much of Bolivia’s lithium reserves–mandate the technological involvement of foreign firms. A deal reached with German ACI Systems (heavily subsidized by the German government) was negated by protests on the part of local residents in the Salar de Uyuni area. Chinese firms were poised to fill that vacuum, offering the possibility of a more equitable development of the mineral. ” . . . . Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019. Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies. . . .”
After the ouster of Morales, the value of Tesla’s stock increased dramatically.
Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was overthrown in a military coup on November 10. He is now in Mexico. Before he left office, Morales had been involved in a long project to bring economic and social democracy to his long-exploited country. It is important to recall that Bolivia has suffered a series of coups, often conducted by the military and the oligarchy on behalf of transnational mining companies. Initially, these were tin firms, but tin is no longer the main target in Bolivia. The main target is its massive deposits of lithium, crucial for the electric car.
Over the past 13 years, Morales has tried to build a different relationship between his country and its resources. He has not wanted the resources to benefit the transnational mining firms, but rather to benefit his own population. Part of that promise was met as Bolivia’s poverty rate has declined, and as Bolivia’s population was able to improve its social indicators. Nationalization of resources combined with the use of its income to fund social development has played a role. The attitude of the Morales government toward the transnational firms produced a harsh response from them, many of them taking Bolivia to court.
“The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies.”
Over the course of the past few years, Bolivia has struggled to raise investment to develop the lithium reserves in a way that brings the wealth back into the country for its people. Morales’ Vice President Álvaro García Linera had said that lithium is the “fuel that will feed the world.” Bolivia was unable to make deals with Western transnational firms; it decided to partner with Chinese firms. This made the Morales government vulnerable. It had walked into the new Cold War between the West and China. The coup against Morales cannot be understood without a glance at this clash.
Clash With the Transnational Firms
When Evo Morales and the Movement for Socialism took power in 2006, the government immediately sought to undo decades of theft by transnational mining firms. Morales’ government seized several of the mining operations of the most powerful firms, such as Glencore, Jindal Steel & Power, Anglo-Argentine Pan American Energy, and South American Silver (now TriMetals Mining). It sent a message that business as usual was not going to continue. Nonetheless, these large firms continued their operations—based on older contracts—in some areas of the country. For example, the Canadian transnational firm South American Silver had created a company in 2003—before Morales came to power—to mine the Malku Khota for silver and indium (a rare earth metal used in flat-screen televisions). South American Silver then began to extend its reach into its concessions. The land that it claimed was inhabited by indigenous Bolivians, who argued that the company was destroying its sacred spaces as well as promoting an atmosphere of violence.
On August 1, 2012, the Morales government—by Supreme Decree no. 1308—annulled the contract with South American Silver (TriMetals Mining), which then sought international arbitration and compensation. Canada’s government of Justin Trudeau—as part of a broader push on behalf of Canadian mining companies in South America—put an immense amount of pressure on Bolivia. In August 2019, TriMetals struck a deal with the Bolivian government for $25.8 million, about a tenth of what it had earlier demanded as compensation. Jindal Steel, an Indian transnational corporation, had an old contract to mine iron ore from Bolivia’s El Mutún, a contract that was put on hold by the Morales government in 2007. In July 2012, Jindal Steel terminated the contract and sought international arbitration and compensation for its investment.
In 2014, it won $22.5 million from Bolivia in a ruling from Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce. For another case against Bolivia, Jindal Steel demanded $100 million in compensation. The Morales government seized three facilities from the Swiss-based transnational mining firm Glencore; these included a tin and zinc mine as well as two smelters. The mine’s expropriation took place after Glencore’s subsidiary clashed violently with miners. Most aggressively, Pan American sued the Bolivian government for $1.5 billion for the expropriation of the Anglo-Argentinian company’s stake in natural gas producer Chaco by the state. Bolivia settled for $357 million in 2014.
The scale of these payouts is enormous. It was estimated in 2014 that the public and private payments made for nationalization of these key sectors amounted to at least $1.9 billion (Bolivia’s GDP was at that time $28 billion). In 2014, even the Financial Times agreed that Morales’ strategy was not entirely inappropriate. “Proof of the success of Morales’s economic model is that since coming to power he has tripled the size of the economy while ramping up record foreign reserves.”
Lithium
Bolivia’s key reserves are in lithium, which is essential for the electric car. Bolivia claims to have 70 percent of the world’s lithium reserves, mostly in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. The complexity of the mining and processing has meant that Bolivia has not been able to develop the lithium industry on its own. It requires capital, and it requires expertise. The salt flat is about 12,000 feet (3,600 meters) above sea level, and it receives high rainfall. This makes it difficult to use sun-based evaporation. Such simpler solutions are available to Chile’s Atacama Desert and in Argentina’s Hombre Muerto. More technical solutions are needed for Bolivia, which means that more investment is needed. The nationalization policy of the Morales government and the geographical complexity of Salar de Uyuni chased away several transnational mining firms. Eramet (France), FMC (United States) and Posco (South Korea) could not make deals with Bolivia, so they now operate in Argentina.
Morales made it clear that any development of the lithium had to be done with Bolivia’s Comibol—its national mining company—and Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB)—its national lithium company—as equal partners. Last year, Germany’s ACI Systems agreed to a deal with Bolivia. After protests from residents in the Salar de Uyuni region, Morales canceled that deal on November 4, 2019. Chinese firms—such as TBEA Group and China Machinery Engineering—made a deal with YLB. It was being said that China’s Tianqi Lithium Group, which operates in Argentina, was going to make a deal with YLB. Both Chinese investment and the Bolivian lithium company were experimenting with new ways to both mine the lithium and to share the profits of the lithium. The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies. Tesla (United States) and Pure Energy Minerals (Canada) both showed great interest in having a direct stake in Bolivian lithium. But they could not make a deal that would take into consideration the parameters set by the Morales government. Morales himself was a direct impediment to the takeover of the lithium fields by the non-Chinese transnational firms. He had to go. After the coup, Tesla’s stock rose astronomically.
2b. The ACI/Bolivia deal had heavy backing by the German government and featured the planned export of lithium to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. ” . . . . With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia. ACI Systems is also in talks to supply companies based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe with lithium from Bolivia. . . . Wolfgang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the parent company of ACI Systems, said more than 80 percent of the lithium would be exported to Germany. . . .”
Of particular significance for the discussion to follow is ” . . . . China’s dominance in the global lithium supply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. . . .”
Germany and Bolivia on Wednesday sealed a partnership for the industrial use of lithium, a key raw material for battery cell production, in an important step to become less dependent on Asian market leaders in the dawning age of electric cars. Interest in battery metals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium is soaring as the auto industry scrambles to build more electric cars and cut noxious fumes from vehicles powered by fossil fuels in light of stricter emission rules. “Germany should become a leading location for battery cell production. A large part of production costs is linked to raw materials,” German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said. “German industry is therefore well advised to secure its needs for lithium early in order to avoid falling behind and slipping into dependency,” Altmaier said, adding the deal was “an important building block” to secure this supply.
With the joint venture, Bolivian state company YLB is teaming up with Germany’s privately-owned ACI Systems to develop its massive Uyuni salt flat and build a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a factory for electric vehicle batteries in Bolivia. ACI Systems is also in talks to supply companies based in Germany and elsewhere in Europe with lithium from Bolivia. The joint venture aims to produce up to 40,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year from 2022 over a period of 70 years. Wolfgang Schmutz, CEO of ACI Group, the parent company of ACI Systems, said more than 80 percent of the lithium would be exported to Germany.
ACI Systems is in talks to supply a big German carmaker with lithium, according to a person familiar with the project. An ACI Systems spokeswoman declined to comment.
MORE CONTROL
For Germany, the public-private partnership is part of wider government efforts to support the production of battery cells in Europe and help companies get more control over the value-added chain of electric vehicles. The government has earmarked 1 billion euros to support domestic companies looking to produce battery cells for electric vehicles as a way to reduce German carmakers’ dependence on Asian suppliers and protect jobs at risk from the shift away from combustion engines.
For Bolivia, the deal to extract lithium from the Uyuni salt flats in the Andes, one of the world’s largest deposits, enables the government to bring jobs to a region plagued by poverty. Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, economy minister of Germany’s southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, the home region of ACI Systems, said the lithium deal would help German carmakers to become less dependent on Asian suppliers of car batteries. The success of the venture now depends on whether both sides can reconcile economic interests with environmental and social requirements, she added.
LITHIUM TRIANGLE
… President Evo Morales has sought to keep lithium from being exported merely as raw material and Germany’s willingness to help build production facilities in Bolivia played a key role in the decision to start the joint venture. When Bolivia sought a foreign partner to develop Uyuni, a Chinese company seemed a natural fit, given China’s dominance in the global lithium supply chain and its strong ties with La Paz. Instead, Bolivia picked ACI Systems, a company from southern Germany untested in lithium that nonetheless beat seven rivals from China, Russia and Canada. Backing from German federal and regional ministries was key to persuading Bolivia ACI’s bid was serious, company and government officials from Bolivia and Germany told Reuters. ———–
2c. Shortly after the ouster of Morales, Tesla announced that Tesla would locate a new car and electric battery factory near Berlin. If the ACI lithium development project in Bolivia is resuscitated, the Tesla move will give the firm access to the Bolivian lithium.
Might that have been the reason for the rise in Tesla’s stock? Might there have been some insider trading?
To unclog bottlenecks last year at his Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) plant in California, Elon Musk flew in six planeloads of new robots and equipment from Germany to speed up battery production for its Model 3. Now the Tesla CEO is trying to tap that German automation ecosystem directly with Tuesday’s announcement that the electric carmaker will build a European car and battery factory near Berlin. So far, Musk has failed in his plans to create a factory so highly automated that it allows Tesla to make cars more efficiently than much bigger rivals. As a result, the automaker has struggled to meet production goals and been hit with defections of key staff members to rival firms. The new German factory is designed to help change all that.
“Everyone knows German engineering is outstanding for sure. You know that is part of the reason why we are locating Gigafactory Europe in Germany,” Musk said at a prestigious German car awards ceremony in Berlin late on Tuesday. BMW (BMWG.DE) has a factory in Leipzig, where it builds its i3 electric vehicle and it will source battery cells from a factory in Erfurt run by China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) (300750.SZ).. VW is retooling a plant in Zwickau to build 330,000 electric cars and German engineering giant Siemens AG (SIEGn.DE), which has an industrial and technology hub in Berlin, last week said it met with Musk to discuss projects in the area of advanced manufacturing and car charging. German carmakers and suppliers are tapping in to a 1 billion euro ($1.10 billion) fund set up by Germany to increase battery cell production and are further aided by a government-funded research facility to increase battery cell development know-how.
PRODUCTION GOAL
Tesla has yet to meet its goal of building more than 500,000 Model 3 cars by 2018. That goal was set back in 2016 and since then Tesla’s production guru, Peter Hochholdinger, a former Audi production expert, quit to joined rival Lucid. This year Tesla expects to deliver 360,000 to 400,000 cars, a target that includes selling all models. By contrast, the Volkswagen brand delivered 6.24 million cars last year and is readying its global production network to build 22 million electric cars by 2028. To ramp up manufacturing, Tesla started making its Model 3 in a tent, but the California-built cars often failed to meet German quality standards. In August, German car rental company Nextmove walked away from a 5 million-euro ($5.55 million) order for 85 Tesla Model 3 electric vehicles, following a dispute over how to fix quality issues.
POTENTIAL FOR AUTOMATION
Although Tesla has chosen a high-cost location, there is higher potential for automation with electric cars since they are less complex to build than combustion engined vehicles. A combustion engined car has 1,400 components in the motor, exhaust system and transmission. By contrast, an electric car’s battery and motor has only 200 components, according to analysts at ING. While the average combustion engine takes 3.5 hours to make, and the average transmission requires 2.7 hours of assembly, an electric motor takes only about 1 hour to assemble, consultants at Alix Partners said in their Global Automotive Outlook study. “Personnel is not a high cost factor in the production of electric cars,” Evercore ISI analyst Arndt Ellinghorst said. Today the biggest cost factor is still battery packs, which amount to between 30% and 50% of the cost of an electric vehicle.
QUALITY VS SCALE
By adding the “Made in Germany” quality, Tesla could significantly boost sales of its electric cars, which are already class-leading. On Tuesday Tesla’s Model 3 was awarded the “Golden Steering Wheel” by Germany’s Auto Bild magazine, with jury member Robin Horning saying the Model 3 had beaten the new BMW 3 series and the Audi A4 in “mid and premium class” category. . . . ———-
3b. Cambridge Analytica is rebranding under a new company, Emerdata. Intriguingly, Cambridge Analytica’s transformation into Emerdata is noteworthy because the firm’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince: ” . . . . But the company’s announcement left several questions unanswered, including who would retain the company’s intellectual property — the so-called psychographic voter profiles built in part with data from Facebook — and whether Cambridge Analytica’s data-mining business would return under new auspices. . . . In recent months, executives at Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group, along with the Mercer family, have moved to created a new firm, Emerdata, based in Britain, according to British records. The new company’s directors include Johnson Ko Chun Shun, a Hong Kong financier and business partner of Erik Prince. . . . An executive and a part owner of SCL Group, Nigel Oakes, has publicly described Emerdata as a way of rolling up the two companies under one new banner. . . . ”
Again, we ask if the SCL/Cambridge Analytica reborn corporate synthesis may have had something to do with the unrest in Hong Kong?
3c. The initial decision by the Morales government to contract with Chinese firms (after the negation of the ACI deal with Germany) should be evaluated against the background of China’s preeminence in “Green” technologies, including electric car technology.
Note the alarmist tone of the New York Times op-ed. It would be great if the U.S. would put a major effort into developing green technologies. The U.S. is going in the opposite direction, however.
“Our Green Energy Challenge” by John Kerry and Ro Khanna; The New York Times; 12/10/2019.
. . . . We should pledge that by the end of the next decade, America will surpass China and win the clean energy race.We aren’t winning the clean energy race today. In many ways, we aren’t even trying. China is becoming an energy superpower. Earlier this year, the Global Commission on the Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation reported that China became the world’s largest producer, exporter and installer of solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles, followed by Japan and Germany. The United States ranks fourth.
China surpassed us for the lead in renewable energy technology, too, with 150,000 patents — making up 30 percent of the world’s total. We are second with just over 100,000 patents, while Japan and the European Union follow with about 75,000 each.
In 2015, China surpassed us to become the largest electric vehicle market and is on pace to dominate production for the next 20 years. Chinese electric vehicles account for 60 percent of global sales: 876,000 vehicles were produced last year compared with 361,000 in America.
China is doing things we are afraid to do. They offer citizens large subsidies for purchasing electric vehicles from state-owned companies. Municipalities waive fees for electric vehicle owners. The city of Shenzhen, which has a population of 12.5 million people, runs a 100 percent electric vehicle bus fleet and is, by fiat, converting 22,000 taxis to electric vehicles.
High-speed rail also is integral to China’s strategy. It has the largest high-speed railway in the world, with 19,000 miles of track and most major cities connected by the network. The United States has less than 500 miles. Our fastest train takes 19 to 22 hours from New York to Chicago, whereas the same distance in China takes four-and-a-half hours. . . .
Eduardo Rozsa Flores a bizarre CV to say the least. Please note, the assassination attempt on Morales in 2009 was timed to coincide *exactly* with Obama’s “historic” meeting with Hugo Chavez in Trinidad. During that meeting Chavez gave Obama a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America.” Of course, the POTUS hadn’t ever cracked it open.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/30271562/ns/world_news-americas/t/chavez-obama-i-want-be-your-friend/#.XhBG0eiIa2c
Eduardo Rózsa-Flores (March 31, 1960 – April 16, 2009) was a Bolivian-Hungarian soldier, journalist, actor, secret agent, mercenary poet and self publicist. Born in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, he was known in Hungary as Rózsa-Flores Eduardo or Rózsa György Eduardo. His wartime nickname in the War in Croatia was Chico, which is also the title of a feature film about him. He was a founding member of the Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association, an Opus Dei member, the editor of the neo-fascist[1][2] Jobbik.net and Vice-President of the Hungarian Islamic Community. [3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_R%C3%B3zsa-Flores
Attempts to understand how Mr Dwyer met the men he died with have thrown light on a shadowy Hungarian nationalist group called the Szekler Legion, which wants autonomy for the large Hungarian minority in Romania’s Transylvania region. Mr Flores posted anti-Morales tirades on a website linked to the legion and is thought to have trained with them. The third man killed in Santa Cruz, Arpad Magyarosi, also had links to the group. At least one member of the legion is thought to have worked for the same security firm as Mr Dwyer in Ireland.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-irishman-and-the-plot-to-kill-the-bolivian-president-1674009.html
–
Obama Meets Chavez: April 17, 2009
Fascist Group Worked as Shell Guards
http://royaldutchshellplc.com/2009/05/05/fascist-group-worked-as-shell-guards/
And it gets even stranger...
Szekler Legion: Transylvanian Separatist Group
People who knew Mr Dwyer confirmed that he went to Bolivia last November for a bodyguard training course with two Hungarians. When the course failed to take place, they returned to Ireland but Mr Dwyer stayed on, and told his father he was working as a bodyguard for “some wealthy guy he met out there”.
Attempts to understand how Mr Dwyer met the men he died with have thrown light on a shadowy Hungarian nationalist group called the Szekler Legion, which wants autonomy for the large Hungarian minority in Romania’s Transylvania region. Mr Flores posted anti-Morales tirades on a website linked to the legion and is thought to have trained with them. The third man killed in Santa Cruz, Arpad Magyarosi, also had links to the group. At least one member of the legion is thought to have worked for the same security firm as Mr Dwyer in Ireland.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-irishman-and-the-plot-to-kill-the-bolivian-president-1674009.html
A related topic from around that time in the Santa Cruz region of Bolivia:
https://ce399.typepad.com/weblog/2008/09/ronald-larsen-racist-anti-indigenous-secessionist-us-rancher-in-bolivia.html
Ronald Larsen: Racist, Anti-Indigenous, Secessionist U.S. Rancher in Bolivia
In his native Montana, Ronald Larsen’s current legal straits might be the stuff of an old-fashioned Western movie: A cattle rancher who believes the government and its allies are unfairly trying to seize his land, and picks up a rifle to signal his displeasure. But in contemporary Bolivia, where Larsen makes his home, his recent clash with the authorities is but another instance of rising tension over land-ownership between, on the one hand, left-wing President Evo Morales and his supporters among Bolivia’s indigenous population, and on the other, political opponents backed by the country’s wealthy eastern elite.
“A small group of ranchers is preventing us from carrying out rightful land reform in the eastern region of Santa Cruz,” says Bolivia’s Vice Minister of Land, Alejandro Almaraz, who accuses Larsen of attacking his convoy this spring. “U.S.-born Ronald Larsen is leading this violent resistance.” But critics counter that Morales is hyping the case to build support ahead of Sunday’s referendum in Santa Cruz, where opposition parties are pressing for autonomy from the central government — and ahead of a constitutional referendum later this year on changes that include capping the amount of land that can be owned by a single individual in Bolivia.
Both the autonomy and land-reform issues have sparked violent unrest over the past year, pitting the largely white farmers and ranchers of Bolivia’s more affluent lowland east against the impoverished indigenous majority who back Morales, himself an Aymara Indian and the nation’s first indigenous President. Little surprise, then, that a national furor has erupted over a confrontation involving government officials and Larsen, 64, who along with his two sons, owns 17 properties totaling 141,000 acres throughout Bolivia, three times as much land as the country’s largest city. (Larsen insists his holdings amount to less than 25,000 acres.)
Last month, when Almaraz and aides tried to pass through Larsen’s Santa Cruz property — they insist it was the only route by which to reach to nearby indigenous Guarani residents to whom they were delivering land deeds — witnesses say the caravan was fired on by Larsen and his son Duston, 29. The incident was followed by two weeks of rancher roadblocks and violent protests that left 40 indigenous people injured.
Larsen, who arrived in Bolivia in 1968, told a La Paz newspaper that Almaraz’s vehicle had entered his property at around 3 a.m. Almaraz, he said, “had not presented any identification. He was drunk and being abusive ... I quieted him with a bullet to his tire. That’s the story.” But the government insists this wasn’t Larsen’s first run-in with Almaraz: the rancher is accused of kidnapping the vice minister for eight hours in February. The two alleged incidents prompted the government to file a criminal complaint of “sedition, robbery and other crimes” against Larsen and his son two weeks ago. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to press formal charges. Neither father nor son has responded publicly to the accusations, and neither responded to repeated requests by TIME for comment.
U.S.-educated Duston Larsen, referring to Morales’ efforts to empower Bolivia’s indigenous, wrote on his MySpace page in 2007, “I used to think democracy was the best form to govern a country but ... should a larger more uneducated group of people (70%) be in charge of making decisions, running a country and voting?” The fact that Duston, in 2004, won the Mr. Bolivia beauty pageant, in the eyes of many government supporters, puts him in the company of the country’s European-oriented elite. (That same year, Miss Bolivia, Gabriela Oviedo, also from the country’s east, suggested Bolivia shouldn’t be considered an indigenous nation: “I’m from the other side of the country. We are tall, and we are white people, and we know English.”) Morales backers say it is precisely this disdain for the indigenous that is driving what they call the secessionist agenda behind Sunday’s autonomy referendum — which is not legally sanctioned by the National Electoral Court or recognized by the Organization of American States. But autonomy supporters say they’re only seeking states’ rights on questions such as taxation, police and public works. “This is a historic demand based on long-standing differences with a La Paz-based central government,” says Edilberto Osinaga, managing director of the Chamber of Eastern Farmers.
Autonomy is favored by more than the two-thirds of Santa Cruz voters needed to pass, according to polls, and Governor Ruben Costas, a staunch Morales opponent, said recently that it would “give birth to a new republic.” He has since denied that he implied a separatist movement for Santa Cruz or the other three eastern states: Beni, Pando and Tarija, which will hold similar votes this summer. But critics say the remark betrayed an underlying goal of the country’s eastern elite: gaining total control over Bolivia’s vast natural gas reserves and its most fertile land.
Conflict over land is also at the heart of the clash over a new draft constitution restricting an individual’s land holdings to just under 25,000 acres — a profound challenge to the ownership pattern in a country where 10% of the population controls more than 90% of arable land. “This is an extremely problematic proposal,” says Osinaga. “You impose those kinds of limits and watch how fast the economy crumbles and poverty grows.”
Under its current land reform program, the Morales government has already given landless Bolivians deeds to 25 million acres (10 million hectares). Some analysts suggest that staging the autonomy referendums is simply a political device to give the easterners greater leverage in pressing Morales to renegotiate constitutional changes. Others fear the rising tension points to that classic Western movie resolution: a violent showdown.
US Rancher in Bolivia Showdown
Jean Friedman-Rudovsky/La Paz
Time Magazine
02 May 2008
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737244,00.html?loomia_si=t0:a3:g2:r1:c0.127237
The assassination of Iranian QUDS Force General Qassem Suleimani will lead to conflict in the middle east and may affect production and transportation of oil, which will most likely raise oil prices significantly A critical question is who will benefit from this?
Answers:
1. Oil companies in non-middle eastern locations or who rely on middle eastern shipping, and
2. Electric car manufacturers.
Volkswagen stands to benefit oil price increases this because they made a risky gamble to invest a whopping $33 Billion to electrify their fleet in the next 4 years. They were “betting big on electric vehicles over the next decade without knowing how much consumers will want them.” Europe and China, where electric-vehicle adoption rates are higher than in the US due to government subsidies and regulations. Volkswagen has an agreement with Ford to sell its MEB platform, allowing Volkswagen to spread its development costs over an even larger number of units. Coordinating the purchase of batteries between brands should, presumably, give Volkswagen more negotiating leverage than if each brand bought batteries alone, creating the opportunity to secure bulk discounts. There are questions about how much EV demand will grow due to concerns over travel range between charges, vehicle price, and the availability and speed of charging stations which make the internal-combustion engine a more practical purchase for many customers. Only Tesla has been able to sell electric vehicles for reasons other than their environmental friendliness, Ramsey added. Like Tesla, Volkswagen seeks to eventually turn electric vehicles into mass-market products. But even China might not be able to induce enough demand for them if its citizens aren’t interested in them. However if oil prices go up significantly the demand for such vehicles are sure to change.
Volkswagen, recently announced that it had reached an agreement with Northvolt, a Swedish electric component manufacturer, to build a battery factory in Germany. The German automaker hopes to surpass rivals such as Tesla and Warren Buffet-backed BYD in China. Lithium-ion batteries, most of which are currently produced in China, are an integral part of Volkswagen’s electrification strategy. Batteries comprise about a third of the cost of electric cars, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. China has 70% of the global lithium cell manufacturing capacity, while the USA has 12%, Europe currently accounts for only 3% of global production capacity of electric vehicle batteries. The Volkswagen-Northvolt deal, which would stimulate the industry, is a “very significant investment for the future of European battery production”.
Volkswagen says it’ll build 1M electric cars by 2023
The German brand originally plotted 2025 as the date it would reach the milestone.
Sean Szymkowski CNET
January 3, 2020 9:22 AM PST
This year marks a transitional one for Volkswagen. The German brand will launch its first electric car in the ID 3 hatchback and show the production version of the ID Crozz electric SUV — the first EV from VW meant for the US.
With all of this big news, VW declared it plans to reach a major milestone earlier than once anticipated. On Thursday, the company said it plans to produce 1 million electric cars come 2023. Originally, VW thought it wouldn’t happen until 2025, but revised forecasts and targets now peg it to happen two years earlier.
All the while, VW Group, Volkswagen’s parent automaker, will be investing almost $37 billion at current exchange rates to lead the EV sector. Just over $12 billion will be spent at the VW brand.
All of this leads to a total of 1.5 million electric cars planned by 2025, an increase of 500,000 cars, and VW still promises to make its EVs attainable.
EV production will largely take place at the company’s Zwickau factory in Germany, though VW is gearing up for production elsewhere. The brand’s electric cars will roll out of a factory in China, as well as the Chattanooga plant in Tennessee. VW will also build a battery plant in Chattanooga.
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/volkswagen-electric-car-production-id3/
Electric vehicles are a tiny piece of the global car market, but Volkswagen is making a huge bet on them. It doesn’t have a choice.
Mark Matousek Nov 8, 2019, 11:04 AM
No automaker that makes gas-powered cars has announced electric-vehicle investment plans as ambitious as Volkwagen’s.
¥ By 2023, Volkswagen says it will spend over $30 billion on electric vehicles, a sum roughly equal to the company’s combined profits from 2015 through 2018. By 2030, Volkswagen intends for electric vehicles to comprise 40% of its global sales.
¥ For Volkswagen’s targets to be attainable, demand for electric vehicles will have to grow significantly from the first half of this year, when they accounted for just under 2% of global light-vehicle sales.
¥ Volkswagen doesn’t have much of a choice in deciding whether or not it wants to invest in electric vehicles due to tightening regulations and the aftermath of its Dieselgate scandal.
¥ But the company’s size could increase the upside and limit the downside of its ambitious electric-vehicle strategy.
In 2006, Volkswagen took a risk. The automaker installed software on diesel-powered vehicles that would help them pass government emissions tests conducted in a lab, then allow the vehicles to produce higher emissions outside of the lab. That decision backfired spectacularly, costing the company billions in fines and recalls and damaging its reputation.
Now, Volkswagen is taking a more virtuous risk: betting big on electric vehicles over the next decade without knowing how much consumers will want them.
The auto industry is headed toward what could be its most transformative period in the past century, as electric vehicles appear set to eventually replace their gas-powered counterparts and self-driving technology has the potential to one day eliminate the need for steering wheels.
Volkswagen’s peers are also making significant investments in future-oriented technology, but when it comes to electric vehicles, no automaker that makes gas-powered cars has matched Volkwagen’s ambitions.
“Nobody has announced a more aggressive spending plan than they have,” said Michael Ramsey, an analyst at Gartner.
Volkswagen doesn’t have much of a choice
By 2023, Volkswagen says it will invest over $30 billion in electric vehicles, a sum roughly equal to the company’s combined profits from 2015 through 2018. By 2030, Volkswagen intends for electric vehicles to comprise 40% of its global sales. No automaker aside from Tesla is even remotely close to a quarter of that number today.
For Volkswagen’s targets to be attainable, demand for electric vehicles will have to grow significantly from the first half of this year, when they accounted for just under 2% of global light-vehicle sales (not including plug-in hybrids).
To some degree, Volkswagen doesn’t have much of a choice in deciding whether or not it wants to invest in electric vehicles. Tightening regulations in Europe mean it would be very expensive for Volkswagen to do nothing, said Richard Hilgert, an equity analyst for Morningstar. The company would pay around $10 billion in fines every year starting in 2021 if the emissions produced by its product mix remained at 2018 levels, Hilgert wrote in a September report.
And a 2016 settlement with the US government related to Volkswagen’s cheating on emissions tests required the company to invest $2 billion in electric-vehicle charging infrastructure and promote zero-emissions vehicles.
But there are commercial reasons for Volkswagen’s plans as well. The company sold more vehicles than any other automaker last year, and most of those sales came in Europe and China, where electric-vehicle adoption rates are higher than in the US due to government subsidies and regulations.
China, “probably more than almost any country on the planet, can dictate what its citizens purchase,” said Karl Brauer, the executive publisher at Cox Automotive.
And in European countries, there are nonpolitical reasons, like their high population densities and a tendency among their citizens to care more about the environment, that give electric vehicles a better chance of catching on in the near-term than in the US, said Dan Edmunds, the director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.
Volkswagen doesn’t expect EVs to hurt profit margins
One of the biggest questions the auto industry faces over the next decade is the extent to which investments in electric vehicles and autonomous-driving technology will hurt profit margins amid a potential dip in sales of gas-powered vehicles. Auto companies already earn thin margins due in part to the high costs of manufacturing; retraining employees and converting factories designed for gas-powered vehicles to produce electric ones won’t help, at least in the near-term.
As one of the world’s largest automakers, Volkswagen’s size could give it a head start in establishing economies of scale for electric vehicles, Ramsey said, but a big investment alone won’t be enough to seize market share in an industry where competitors fight over fractions of a percentage point.
“Just because you’re first, doesn’t mean you’re going to win,” said Rebecca Lindland, the founder of the website Rebeccadrives.com and a former analyst for Kelley Blue Book.
To build a more lasting competitive advantage in the transition to electric vehicles, Volkswagen will need a blockbuster product, Ramsey said. The company has had a few in its history, like the Beetle and Golf, and it hopes the ID.3 hatchback will become the electric version of those era-defining vehicles. Set for release next year, the ID.3 will start at under $34,000 and have a range between around 200 and 340 miles (based on European testing standards, which tend to be more generous than in the US).
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess said in October that he doesn’t expect electric vehicles to hurt the company’s profit margins due to the dedicated platform it has designed for use in a wide range of models and its sharing of battery suppliers between its twelve brands.
While requiring an upfront investment, that platform, called “MEB,” should lower development and production costs in the future, because models will share parts and a basic architecture. Volkswagen has an agreement with Ford to sell its MEB platform, allowing Volkswagen to spread its development costs over an even larger number of units. Coordinating the purchase of batteries between brands should, presumably, give Volkswagen more negotiating leverage than if each brand bought batteries alone, creating the opportunity to secure bulk discounts.
Bryan Logan/Business Insider
There are questions about how much EV demand will grow
But it’s not entirely clear if customers will want electric vehicles enough to support Volkswagen’s sales goals due to concerns over range, price, and the availability and speed of charging stations.
“It’s hard to imagine, in my view, a big shift to electrification until we see better parity with an internal-combustion engine in a lot of different areas,” Ramsey said.
So far, only Tesla has been able to sell electric vehicles for reasons other than their environmental friendliness, Ramsey added. Like Tesla, Volkswagen seeks to eventually turn electric vehicles into mass-market products. But even China might not be able to induce enough demand for them if its citizens aren’t interested in them, Brauer said.
Volkswagen’s size will limit the downside in a scenario where demand does not rise as fast as expected. Unlike a startup like NIO, which has struggled to establish steady sales growth, Volkswagen has enough engineers to work on multiple kinds of vehicles at the same time, Ramsey said, so unexpectedly soft demand for electric vehicles won’t put the company out of business.
And Volkswagen does not appear to be in a situation similar to the one General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler faced in the years leading up to the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, Brauer said, when rising fuel prices hurt demand for the SUVs and pickup trucks they have become increasingly reliant upon for their profits and helped pushed them to or near bankruptcy. Volkswagen can always shift its focus back to gas-powered cars.
If Tesla had to bet its continued existence on its first mass-market vehicle, the Model 3 sedan, Volkswagen’s electric-vehicle investment plans are not so perilous. In fact, the downside of not being prepared for the eventual transition away from gas-powered vehicles may be greater than the risk of being overprepared.
“I think that their thought process is, look, if we don’t do this at all and we keep building what we have and then, all of a sudden, fuel prices rise dramatically or the European Union won’t let us sell our vehicles, that’s a downside risk we cannot afford,” Ramsey said.
https://www.businessinsider.com/vw-making-huge-bet-on-electric-vehicles-in-next-decade-2019–11
Here’s what Volkswagen Group’s future electrification strategy looks like
September 19, 2019
Mark Lugris
Volkswagen is hoping to be a major player in the auto industry’s electric future
The world’s biggest automaker, Volkswagen, recently announced that it had reached an agreement with Northvolt, a Swedish electric component manufacturer, to build a battery factory in Germany. The automaker also confirmed production dates for two new VW models.
Production of lithium-ion batteries will likely begin in late 2023 or early 2024, which would allow Volkswagen to mount “the largest electric offensive in the automotive industry worldwide”. In the next decade, the Volkswagen Group is projected to introduce approximately 70 new electric models and assemble 22 million electric vehicles. It will invest more than US$33 billion into electrifying its fleet over the next four years in response to pressure from regulators and the backlash from its diesel emissions scandal.
The German automaker hopes to surpass rivals such as Tesla and Warren Buffet-backed BYD in China. Lithium-ion batteries, most of which are currently produced in China, are an integral part of Volkswagen’s electrification strategy. Batteries comprise about a third of the cost of electric cars, according to consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.
China has 70% of the global lithium cell manufacturing capacity, while the USA has 12%, said Simone Tagliapietra, a climate and energy fellow at Bruegel, the European economic think tank. Meanwhile, Europe only accounts for 3% of global production capacity, according to the European Commission. The Volkswagen-Northvolt deal, which would stimulate the industry, is a “very significant investment for the future of European battery production”, Tagliapietra told CNN Business.
Volkswagen will invest US$993 million into the Northvolt joint venture with part of the money going into the German factory, while the rest will provide Volkswagen a 20% stake in Northvolt and a seat on its supervisory board.
Volkswagen has stated that production of the new ID.3 electric car series will begin in November, with the first units delivered to buyers next year. The limited edition of the ID.3, which made its debut on 9 September at the Frankfurt Motor Show, is already sold out. An electric version of the vintage Volkswagen Beetle, developed by a partner company eClassics using components from the new VW e‑up! city car, also premiered in Frankfurt. In addition, Porsche, a Volkswagen premium brand, began producing its first all-electric sports car – the Taycan – on 9 September.
Volkswagen will invest nearly US$1.5 billion into revamping its Zwickau manufacturing plant, which previously produced internal combustion engines so that it can manufacture electric vehicles. The overhaul began in 2018 and will be completed by 2020. By 2021, the plant is projected to produce 330,000 cars per year, making it Europe’s “largest and most efficient electric vehicle plant”, according to Volkswagen. The ID.3 will be the first car assembled on this new modular electric-car production platform or MEB. In the next three years, production of 33 VW models will begin on the MEB.
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https://www.ewaste-expo.com/heres-what-volkswagen-groups-future-electrification-strategy-looks-like/
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESSFEBRUARY 6, 2019 / 2:04 AM / A YEAR AGO
Bet everything on electric: Inside Volkswagen’s radical strategy shift
Edward Taylor, Jan Schwartz
11 MIN READ
¥
WOLFSBURG, Germany (Reuters) — If Volkswagen realizes its ambition of becoming the global leader in electric cars, it will be thanks to a radical and risky bet born out of the biggest calamity in its history.
The German giant has staked its future, to the tune of 80 billion euros ($91 billion), on being able to profitably mass-produce electric vehicles — a feat no carmaker has come close to achieving.
So far mainstream automakers’ electric plans have had one main goal: to protect profits gleaned from high-margin conventional cars by adding enough zero-emission vehicles to their fleet to meet clean-air rules.
Customers have meanwhile largely shunned electric vehicles because they are too expensive, can be inconvenient to charge and lack range.
The biggest strategy shift in Volkswagen’s 80 years has its roots in a weekend crisis meeting at the Rothehof guesthouse in Wolfsburg on October 10, 2015, senior executives told Reuters.
At the meeting hosted by then VW brand chief Herbert Diess, nine top managers gathered on a cloudy Saturday afternoon to discuss the way forward after regulators blew the whistle on the company’s emissions cheating, a scandal that cost it more than 27 billion euros in fines and tainted its name.
“It was an intense discussion, so was the realization that this could be an opportunity, if we jump far enough,” said Juergen Stackmann, VW brand’s board member for sales.
“It was an initial planning session to do more than just play with the idea of electric cars,” he told Reuters. “We asked ourselves: what is our vision for the future of the brand? Everything that you see today is connected to this.”
Just three days after the Rothehof meeting of the VW brand’s management board, Volkswagen announced plans to develop an electric vehicle platform, codenamed MEB, paving the way for mass production of an affordable electric car.
For months after the Volkswagen scandal blew up in 2015, rival carmakers treated diesel-cheating as a “VW issue”, according to industry experts. But regulators have since uncovered excessive emissions across the sector and unleashed a clampdown that undermines the business case for combustion engines, forcing a sector-wide rethink.
Now the “villain” of dieselgate is likely to become the largest producer of electric cars in the world in coming years, analysts say, putting it in pole position to flood the market — should the demand materialize.
“Decisions to convert the Emden factory (in Lower Saxony) to build electric cars, would never have happened without this Saturday meeting,” said Stackmann, one of five senior VW executives who spoke to Reuters.
However the full scale of VW’s ambitions were only revealed two months ago when it took the industry by surprise by pledging to spend 80 billion euros to develop electric vehicles and buy batteries, dwarfing the investment of rivals.
It plans to raise annual production of electric cars to 3 million by 2025, from 40,000 in 2018.
STRATEGIC PERILS
It’s a risky bet.
With regulators and lawmakers, rather than customers, dictating what kind of vehicles can hit the road, analysts at Deloitte say the industry could produce 14 million electric cars for which there is no consumer demand.
It’s also an all-or-nothing bet in the long run.
VW, whose ID electric car will hit showrooms in 2020, has set a deadline for ending mass production of combustion engines. The final generation of gasoline and diesel engines will be developed by 2026.
Arndt Ellinghorst, analyst at Evercore ISI, said betting on electric vehicles (EVs) could be risky because customers did not want to own cars dependent on street-charging facilities.
“What if people are still not ready to own EVs? Will adoption be the same in the U.S., Europe and China?” he said.
But he added that EU and Chinese emissions regulations made electric vehicle adoption inevitable and that being an early industry mover in that direction offered a “positive risk-reward”.
Another by-product of dieselgate that quickened VW’s electric drive, according to the senior executives, was a purge of the company’s old guard, who became the focus of public and political anger.
This empowered Diess, a newcomer who had joined as VW brand boss shortly before U.S. regulators exposed the carmaker’s emission test cheating.
Diess, who joined from BMW where he helped pioneer a ground-breaking electric vehicle, has since been appointed CEO of Volkswagen Group, a multi-brand empire that includes Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini and Ducati.
Carmakers have failed to mass-produce electric cars profitably largely because of the prohibitive cost of battery packs which make up between 30 percent and 50 percent of the cost of an electric vehicle.
A 500 km-range battery costs around $20,000, compared with a gasoline engine that costs around $5,000. Add to that another $2,000 for the electric motor and inverter, and the gap is even wider.
Even electric start-up Tesla’s cheapest car, the Model 3, is on sale in Germany at 55,400 euros, priced just below a base model Porsche Macan, a compact SUV. In the United States, Model 3 prices start at $35,950.
VW believes its scale will give it an edge to build an electric vehicle costing no more than its current Golf model, about 20,000 euros, using its procurement clout as the world’s largest car and truck maker to drive down the cost.
“We are Volkswagen, a brand for the people. For electric cars we need economies of scale. And VW, more than any other carmaker, can take advantage of this,” a senior Volkswagen executive told Reuters, declining to be named.
The carmaker’s electric-vehicle budget outstrips that of its closest competitor, Germany’s Daimler, which has committed $42 billion. General Motors, the No.1 U.S. automaker, has said it plans to spend a combined $8 billion on electric and self-driving vehicles.
Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi said in late 2017 they would spend 10 billion euros by 2022 on developing electric and autonomous cars.
“On a 2025 view, we expect Volkswagen to be the number one electric vehicles producer globally,” UBS analyst Patrick Hummel said. “Tesla is likely to remain a niche player.”
STRICTER TESTING
VW’s test cheating using engine management software — “defeat devices” — resulted in the introduction of tougher pollution tests which revealed in 2016 and 2017 that emissions readings across the industry were up to 20 percent higher under real-world driving conditions compared with lab conditions.
This has raised the bar on the auto sector’s efforts to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, blamed for causing global warming.
EU lawmakers in December agreed a cut in carbon dioxide emissions from cars of 37.5 percent by 2030 compared with 2021 levels. This was after the European Union forced a 40 percent cut in emissions between 2007 and 2021.
“This goal is no longer reachable using combustion engines alone,” Volkmar Denner, chief executive of Bosch, the world’s biggest auto supplier, said about the 2030 proposals.
Every gram of excessive carbon dioxide pollution will be penalized with a 95 euros fine from this year onwards.
Strategy firm PA Consulting forecasts VW will face a 1.4‑billion-euro penalty for overstepping average limits in Europe by 2021, while Ford and Fiat-Chrysler face fines of 430 million euros and 700 million euros respectively.
Daimler, BMW, PSA, Mazda and Hyundai will miss their 2021 average emissions targets, PA Consulting forecasts. Toyota, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, Volvo, Honda and Jaguar Land Rover are on track to meet their goals.
PA Consulting’s forecasts were extrapolated using 2017 registration data for each powertrain type and consumer buying trends, but do not include more recent sales trends.
Ford, VW and BMW said they would meet their targets because of a push to sell more hybrid and electric cars in 2018. Daimler said it aimed to meet the targets, PSA said it would respect the targets while Fiat-Chrysler declined to comment. Mazda had no immediate comment, while Hyundai did not respond to a request for comment.
Carmakers have struggled to lower their average fleet emissions because of a shift in customer taste toward heavier, bigger SUVs (sports utility vehicles), which make it harder to maintain the same levels of acceleration and comfort without increasing fuel consumption and pollution.
SUVs are now the most popular vehicle category in Europe, commanding a market share of 34.6 percent, according to JATO Dynamics. Even Porsche, which makes lightweight sportscars, relies on sports utility vehicles for 61 percent of sales.
As the industry-wide scale of excessive emissions prompted Brussels to push through tougher laws late last year, VW executives concluded that purely electric cars were the most efficient way to meet carbon dioxide goals across its fleet.
This was the point of no return, according to executives, when the company made the final electric investment decisions and committed to staying the course it had plotted after dieselgate.
“After evaluating alternatives, we opted for electromobility,” chief operating officer Ralf Brandstaetter told Reuters about VW’s deliberations in November.
Additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach and Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Pravin Char
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insight/bet-everything-on-electric-inside-volkswagens-radical-strategy-shift-idUSKCN1PV0K4
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-electric-insight/bet-everything-on-electric-inside-volkswagens-radical-strategy-shift-idUSKCN1PV0K4
In addition to beneficiaries from high oil prices due to a war with Iran such as:
1. Oil companies in non-middle eastern locations or who do not rely on middle eastern shipping, and
2. Electric car manufacturers
The other beneficiaries are:
1. Coal Mining, coal equipment manufacturers and coal electricity producers
2. Nuclear mining, nuclear equipment manufacturers and electricity producers.
2. Military and arms manufacturers.
3. Manifacturers of electric vehicle charging stations.
Electric vehicles need to be recharged and this increases demand for electricity. I doubt that alternative energy will fill this increased demand need.
This is one of those ‘better late than never...but not much better’ revelations: The New York Times reported last week about a new analysis of the evidence used by the Organization of American States (OAS) to declare there were election ‘irregularities’ being waged by Evo Morales’s government last fall, a charge that rapidly led to the successful coup that resulted in a far right government that continues to hold power and has yet to schedule new elections.
So what did this new analysis discover about the OAS’s original analysis of Bolivia’s election? That it was complete garbage, of course. Specifically, they found that they were unable to reproduce the OAS’s findings unless they excluded results from the manually processed, late-reporting polling booths. And there’s no reason to exclude that data. So the OAS was using an incorrect data set when they made those initial claims for election irregularities. And as the following Common Dreams piece points out, these problems with the OAS’s analysis were raised by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) within 24 hours of the OAS raising them but it was only now, when that early CEPR analysis has been replicated by this new study, that these problems with the original claims are being widely reported in the mainstream press. As the CEPR notes, the OAS is continued to stand by its bogus assertions for months and as we’ll see, it’s continuing to stand by its bogus analysis. And it’s only now, when it’s too late to matter and the far right is thoroughly in control of Bolivia, that we’re seeing a mainstream recognition that Bolivia experienced a propaganda-driven far right coup fomented by the international community that continues to enjoy that international support:
“Since the coup, the human rights situation in the Latin American country has gone from bad to worse as the government of far-right interim president Jeanine Áñez has rolled back reforms put in place by Morales, opened the country’s resources to private exploitation, and delayed scheduled elections under the pretext of public health due to the coronavirus outbreak.”
Note that Bolivia’s electoral tribunal recently announced it set a September 6 election date that is supposed to be a repeat of the disputed election, although presumably it will be a rerun without Morales on the ballot since the interim government ruled in November that he can’t run again. So we’ll see what types of future delays the interim government demands. Or what kind of election irregularities the OAS will discover of Morale’s party wins again. But whatever those irregularities happen to be, we can be confident the OAS will be allowed to repeat its claims for months without being challenged even after groups point out the flaws in their analysis. Because that’s exactly what already happened:
Now here’s the New York Times piece on the the new study that includes statements from the OAS. As the article notes, the new analysis also concludes that the OAS used an inappropriate statistical method that artificially created the appearance of a break in the voting trend for Morales. So it’s not just a matter of using rigged data but also rigged methodologies.
And yet the OAS is standing by its accusations of vote fraud despite this analysis. How so? Well, as the OAS puts it, the statistical evidence that was disputed by this new analysis isn’t the evidence that the OAS relied on when making its assessment that there were election irregularities because the voting data coming out of Bolivia was so flawed to begin with there’s no way to say one way or another from the statistics whether or not there were voting irregularities. Instead, they argue, there was other evidence like hidden voting IT infrastructure and falsified statements from polls that are the actual evidence of irregularities.
In addition, the O.A.S. consultant who conducted their statistical analysis, Professor Irfan Nooruddin of Georgetown University, said the new study misrepresented his work and was wrong, although he will not provide details and did not share his methods or data with the authors of the study, despite repeated requests. So this isn’t just a story about the OAS using garbage rigged analysis to justify a coup. It’s also a story about the OAS continuing to stand by that garbage rigged analysis as we head towards a rerun of that contested election. Hopefully. Assuming the far right interim government ever actually allows the rerun election to happen:
“The O.A.S. said it stood by its statistical analysis, because it successfully detected early initial indications of fraud.”
The OAS is standing by its garbage statistical analysis. Apparently because that garbage analysis helped it detect all initial indications of fraud like falsified statements of polls and hidden I.T. structures and since these non-statistical pieces of evidence of fraud haven’t been refuted by this new study and that’s why the OAS is standing by its refuted statistical methods. It’s an interesting case of circular reasoning that, if anything, should raise serious questions about the validity of those other initial indications of fraud:
And note that these new analysis didn’t just raise issues with the data set they the OAS used. They also found problems with the statistical method. A method that artificially created the appearance of a break in the voting trend:
So the statistical methods used by the OAS weren’t just flawed. They were fraudulent. At least that’s the case if a method was used that was artificially creating the appearance of a break in the voting trend when it’s that alleged break in the voting trend that was the basis for the OAS’s initial claims of voting irregularities. And that analysis is what the OAS is continuing to stand by in the face of this new study. We’ll see if those recently scheduled September elections actually happen. But if they do, the OAS has making it abundantly clear that was should expected plenty of flawed and rigged analyses about how the election was flawed and rigged. At least assuming the right-wing candidate that international community clearly wants to see running Bolivia doesn’t win. If they win everything will presumably be just fine with the vote.
Here’s a set of articles about three different announcements related to the global rare earth metal industry and the geopolitical tensions underlying those announcements. Geopolitical tensions that promise to extend beyond the globe:
First, here’s a Financial Times article from back in February that underscores how China’s present-day near monopoly on rare earth mining is being used as a point of leverage in the increasingly tense relationship between the US and China. Back in January, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposed draft controls on the production and export of 17 rare earth minerals in China, which controls about 80 per cent of global supply. Mining industry executives were reportedly asked by government officials how badly companies in the US and Europe, including defense contractors, would be impacted by rare earth export restrictions during a bilateral dispute. In other words, if China turns off the rare earth spigot, who gets hurt?
But there’s another catch, as we’ll look at in the next article: while the world relies on China for its rare earth supplies, China rare earth industry relies on Myanmar. In particular, rare earth supplies controlled by Myanmar’s autonomous militias.
Next, we’ll take a look at a Bloomberg article published a week later about the Biden administration announcing a review of the US’s rare earth supply chain, with strong indications that the US was going to be turning to Canada for a more secure rare earth supply going forward. But, crucially in relation to the potential leverage China has during bilateral disputes, the US was reportedly at least a decade away from securing a rare earth supply that isn’t dependent on China, even if it starts working on securing that supply now.
A couple weeks after the Biden administration announced that review, Russian and China signed a memorandum of understanding to build what the two countries call an “International Lunar Research Station” (ILRS) on the moon. As we’ll see, intentionally or not, this new Russian-China project is being seen as a direct challenge to the what has come to be known as the Artemis Alliance being formed by NASA with a number of countries and commercial partners. And what’s the big commercial interest on the moon? Rare earth mining! So the next space race could end up being a race for rare earth metals as part of a larger race for leverage and control over an industry crucial to the technologies of tomorrow.
Ok, first, here’s a look at China’s internal analysis into the repercussions of a rare earth export ban. Repercussions felt in the US defense contractor industry in particular in the event of a future “bilateral dispute”:
“The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology last month proposed draft controls on the production and export of 17 rare earth minerals in China, which controls about 80 per cent of global supply.”
Moves are afoot in the rare earth space. Or at least plans are in the works should global tensions translate into outright disputes or conflicts. China is examining its leverage at the same time the West is examining its alternatives:
And then there’s the interesting question of how Myanmar, a country in the midst of a coup, could impact the global rare earth supply. It turns out Myanmar is crucial to China’s rare earth industry:
How crucial? We’ll, as the following article from February describes, about half of the rare earth concentrates refined in China’s rare earth refining industry came from Myanmar in 2020. But the supply chain wasn’t been disrupted by the coup because it’s under the control of autonomous militias. So a crucial supply for China’s rare earth near-monopoly relies on autonomous militias in Myanmar. It’s not a great state of affairs:
“China is the world’s dominant producer of rare earths, a group of 17 minerals used in consumer electronics and military equipment. But it relied on Myanmar for about half its heavy rare earth concentrates in 2020, says Adamas Intelligence managing director Ryan Castilloux.”
As we can see, it’s not exactly a Chinese global rare earth monopoly. It’s more like a China/Myanmar global rare earth monopoly. Or, rather, a Chinese/Myanmar autonomous militia global rare earth monopoly:
It’s not exactly a stable monopoly. Then again, it’s not like there are a lot of other options. That’s the thing about rare earth mining: there are only so many places on the globe with high enough concentrations to make the mining commercially worth it, especially factoring in all of the associated pollution from the notoriously dirty industry. And that’s why secure rare earth supplies for the US are at least a decade away. Assuming Canada agrees to cooperate and become the US’s new rare earth secure source:
“A review of the U.S. critical minerals and rare earths supply chain that the president ordered this week is likely to show that even with sweeping changes the nation is at least a decade from becoming self sufficient. That will mean turning to countries such as Canada, which has the the largest number of rare earth projects in the world, according to Gareth Hatch, managing director of Strategic Materials Advisors Ltd.”
Good luck not relying on Chinese rare earth supplies for at least the next decade. That’s the supply-demand status quo. For now. The situation can change, as China’s own internal analyses have no doubt concluded. Based on what we’re seeing, there’s a decade window where China will have outsized leverage in the rare earth space and all the parties involved know this. How that leverage can be exploited without effectively coercing the rest of the world into developing their own rare earth supply chains is something Beijing is no doubt looking into. Carefully. After all, if they screw this up, the fight for a secure rare earth supply-chain could end up becoming a battle for the moon. Which would be maniacal but the kind of maniacal future outcome that seems entirely plausible at this point:
“In short, the side that first exploits lunar resources effectively will be the side that creates a space-based industrial revolution enabled by lunar resources. Either the Sino-Russian Axis or the Artemis Alliance will own the future.”
Either the Sino-Russian Axis or the Artemis Alliance will own the future. That’s how this looming space race is going to be framed. And there’s more than a grain of truth to it. The mineral wealth of the moon is potentially immense. Something Congress took note of when it passed the U.S. Space Launch Competitiveness Act that asserts that American citizens who mine space resources, including on the moon, own those resources:
As we can see, the resources of the moon are a commercial mega-prize. And nothing drives foreign policy quite like commercial mega-prizes. It’s hard to imagine a greater invitation to future conflict than a moon that happens to have a bunch of the stuff we don’t have a lot of on earth, just floating away up there waiting for us all to share it. It doesn’t bode well. At this point it’s looking more like a question of when, not if, the moon wars will be fought. This is the stupid nature of humanity.
And while that future battle for the moon probably won’t be exclusively about rare earth supplies, it’s going to be at least partially about security those supplies. After all, rare earth metals of vital for not just the technologies of the future but, in particular, the the weapons systems of the future. The battle for the moon will be, in part, a battle for the ability to fight in the future. That’s how horribly meta the rare earth supply chain tensions fundamentally are on one level: it’s not so much a fight for the future as it is a fight to keep fighting in the future. Everything else is kind of an afterthought. And when that’s the kind of dynamic at work for a crucial commodity we should expect the worst kind of risk taking and violent gambles, on all sides. This is a very big fight we’re seeing slowly unfold. Too big for the planet, some might argue.
Here’s a pair of articles about the global lithium race. A global race that, on one level, is the race to secure access to an element seen as vital to the technologies and industries of the future. And race that, on another level, is kind of like a race to WWIII. Because the world can’t really adequately go to war against itself as long as China continues to dominate the rare earth mining and refining industries. It’s those twin objectives — the race to economically secure the future and the race to blow up the future — generating the kind of national sense urgency in places like the US and Germany that appears to be creating an opportunity for a large number of mining projects that just didn’t seem plausible in years past due to local opposition over the very real pollution concerns. And as we’ll see, there are a number of companies now promising to run environmentally friendly mines in the US or Germany that could be up and running in just a few years. Tick Tock:
“The fight over the Nevada mine is emblematic of a fundamental tension surfacing around the world: Electric cars and renewable energy may not be as green as they appear. Production of raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel that are essential to these technologies are often ruinous to land, water, wildlife and people.”
It’s quote a dynamic: lithium powers the green technology of tomorrow, at the cost of trashing the environment today. A dynamic that had previously been resolved by offshoring the mining, refining, and therefore pollution, of the US’s rare earth supplies. That’s going to change, possibly with billions of dollars in federal aid:
And with that prospect of federal aid, we’re also hearing promises from the industry of how soon the mining operations could begin, with Lithium Americas hoping to start mining operations in 2022:
Berkshire Hathaway is similarly hoping to complete a demonstration plant by April 2022, less than a year away:
Now, these industries are obviously going to over-promise and under-deliver when it comes to these timelines. But still, it’s looking like a substantial increase in domestic lithium production is just a matter of time for the US.
Similarly, it sounds like Germany could see its domestic lithium production surge in coming years, with projects in the Upper-Rhine Valley in the Black Forest area of southwestern Germany — which holds one of the largest known lithium deposits in the world — slated to come online in the next three to four years:
“Straddling an area 300 kilometres (186.41 miles) long and up to 40 kilometres wide, the Upper-Rhine Valley in the Black Forest area of southwestern Germany holds enough lithium for more than 400 million electric cars, geologolists have estimated, making it one of the world’s biggest deposits.”
Is German lithium going to be fueling the next generation of German electric vehicles? That’s the promise being made by the companies eager to begin tapping Germany’s massive deposits, with new production possibly coming online by 2024 and ramping up the rest of the decade:
As we can see, 2024 is scheduled to be a pretty big year for the global rare earth industry. The desire to secure domestic supplies is in the process overtaking the environmental concerns that had been holding domestic mining industry back up until now in both the US and Germany. At this point, a rapid explosion of the mining sectors in these countries appears to be just a matter of time. And once those domestic lithium supplies are established, the risks of a global conflict to the supply chains of advanced weapons systems become a lot less risky. It’s one of the dark sides of this ‘white gold rush’. Perhaps the darkest side.
But also keep in mind that global demand for rare earths is only expected to keep increasingly too, so it’s not like we can necessarily assume this increased domestic supply will be decreasing the international demand for sources in places like Bolivia or Myanmar. There’s basically an insatiable appetite for this stuff at this moment in history.
Additionally, the critical nature of these materials in advanced weapons makes control of the supply a geopolitical object aside from domestic demand concerns. Reaching a point where the major world powers can domestically secure the lithium supplies needed to power their militaries doesn’t mean we should assume nations like Bolivia with large lithium deposits aren’t going to remain focal points in the global power struggles. In other words, even if the international demand for lithium is subdued by a surge in domestic lithium mining, we shouldn’t necessarily assume the demand for wars over control of international lithium supplies are going to be subdued too.
Finally, also keep in mind that our future lithium-fueled WWIII is guaranteed to be pretty depressing. Severely depressing. It’s another reason to secure a domestic lithium supply.
It is interesting that the Salton Sea is mentioned in the article, for it was the former test site for the Atomic Energy Commission, NASA, & the infamous joint venture between Wackenhut & the Cabazon Nation, called “Cabazon Arms”, the later of which tested rail-guns, anti-armor tank rounds, depleted-uranium warheads & weapons-grade t‑cell lymphoma cyanobacteria bio-weapons!
And, according to some sources, “Cabazon Arms” developed highly advanced artificial intelligence that was later covertly sold to dozens of target civilian & military intelligence organizations, so the CIA could conduct “special key access” back-door infiltration & data-mining programs against whoever was stupid enough to purchase the software.
Of course, I am referring to the old “INSLAW Affaire”, which had connections to the CIA-controlled “Safari Club” & “Operation Cyclone”, which linked back to the narcotics-ridden “Bank of Credit and Commerce International” & fascist-infested “Al Taqwa Bank”, two banks that funded the operations of domestic terrorist dummy-fronts called “al kifah refugee center”, “CARE International” & “Muwaqaf (Blessed Relief) Foundation”, which were nominally controlled by the CIA-sponsored intelligence organization “Maktab al-Khidamat”, that used the “Cabazon Arms” developed artificial intelligence to conduct terrorist operations via several computer technology applications companies who had contracts with the United States Defense community, to include “PTECH”, “Systematics”, “Acxiom”, “Alltel”, & “In-Q-Tel”.
Strange that the guts of those PROMIS-inspired AI are now about to be harvested just down the street from where they spawned, the Salton Sea...