Meet the multimillionaire who wants to be Bolivia's first right-wing president elected in 20 years

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — It's no surprise that Samuel Doria Medina is running for president of Bolivia: The 66-year-old multimillionaire ran as a center-right candidate in the elections of 2005, 2009 and 2014. He failed each time as Bolivia's leftist ruling party, founded by former President Evo Morales, maintained a tight grip over politics.

What’s unexpected is that next month, after almost two decades of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party in power, the candidate who promises to arrest Morales and cozy up to U.S. President Donald Trump stands a real chance of victory.

Polls show Doria Medina, owner of hotel chains and Bolivia’s Burger King restaurants, as a front-runner in the Aug. 17 election.

"Not only are we going to change the president, but the political cycle," Doria Medina, a former cement magnate, told The Associated Press Wednesday from his sleek office on the 20th floor of one of Bolivia’s tallest towers that he helped build. “Part of that change will be the emergence of new figures.”

Doria Medina, a successful businessman and entrepreneur, is tapping public outrage over Bolivia’s worst economic crisis since 1991.

He promises unity to voters frustrated by the fracturing of the MAS party between current President Luis Arce and his erstwhile ally, the larger-than-life Morales, who oversaw a so-called economic miracle of rising growth and falling poverty for much of his tenure from 2006-2019.

But Morales' statist economic model, built on natural gas exports, has gone bust. Now the landlocked nation of 12 million is approaching a watershed moment as crippling dollar shortages, mass unrest and fuel scarcity threaten the once-unquestioned dominance of the MAS party founded in the 1990s.

“We have a population that wants the economic conflict and lack of fuel to be solved,” Doria Medina said.

Much remains uncertain in the run-up to the highly anticipated vote, with Morales’ large base of loyalists vowing to leave their ballots blank on account of the former president’s contentious exclusion from the race — in part a result of his bitter political fight with Arce.

Facing a humiliating defeat, Arce dropped out of the race.

The only leftist candidate leading polls is Andrónico Rodríguez, the 36-year-old president of the senate and vice president of Morales’ coca-farming union. Rodríguez would be considered the political heir of Morales' MAS if it weren't for Morales branding him a traitor for running against him.

With other opposition candidates further to the right, analysts see the moderate Doria Medina as best-positioned to win over traditional MAS party supporters as he promises to put the brakes on the foreign exchange rate and resolve fuel shortages within his first 100 days.

The value of a boliviano on the black market is now around half the official exchange rate.

“This type of crisis has to be resolved very quickly," Doria Medina said, citing as a model the shock adjustment of radical libertarian President Javier Milei that drove down Argentina's double-digit inflation.

To achieve such a swift transformation, Doria Medina told AP he would first scrap fuel subsidies, which have long been a politically sensitive pillar of the MAS party’s economic policy. When Morales tried to eliminate the generous subsidies in 2010, mass nationwide riots forced him to backtrack.

“It's the biggest absurdity that in Bolivia it's $0.30 per liter of gasoline and in all neighboring countries it's $1,” Doria Medina said, dismissing possible fallout from the move. Bolivia hemorrhaged $3 billion subsidizing gasoline and fuel last year.

Doria Medina said his overhaul of subsidies and state-owned companies would accompany a major foreign policy shift after years of Bolivia aligning itself with China, Iran and Russia.

“Of course we're going to seek rapprochement with the United States,” he said. “We're obviously going to try to have an agreement so that Bolivian products can reach the largest market in the world.”

Arguably the biggest potential prize for the U.S. is Bolivia's large stockpiles of strategic minerals, including lithium, a key component of renewable batteries. Chinese and Russian companies have sought stakes in Bolivian lithium mines that remain largely undeveloped despite Morales' attempts and Arce's ambitions.

After being run out of the presidential election and hit with an arrest warrant on charges related to his sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl, Morales remains holed up in his tropical stronghold. He says the allegations are politically motivated.

Doria Medina was blunt when asked about the fate of Morales if he were to be elected.

“One must comply with the law,” he said. “There is an award for his arrest. I'm going to comply with the law.”

Pressed on whether this meant prison time for Morales, he said yes, adding that he wouldn't be surprised if Morales fled the country first — as he did in 2019, after resigning under military pressure in the wake of protests over his disputed reelection to an unprecedented fourth term.

Doria Medina dismissed concerns over Morales' threats to “convulse the country” in protest over the elections.

“Evo Morales no longer has that political strength. If he did, it would be something else," he said.

“I travel all over the country and people are upset. They're telling me they will vote to punish him."

DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Bolivian presidential candidate Samuel Doria Medina flashes two thumbs up at the end of an interview in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Bolivian presidential candidate Samuel Doria Medina listens to questions during an interview, in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

Bolivian presidential candidate Samuel Doria Medina listens to questions during an interview, in La Paz, Bolivia, Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)

BEIJING (AP) — Breaking with the United States, Canada has agreed to cut its 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on Canadian farm products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday.

Carney made the announcement after two days of meetings with Chinese leaders. He said there would be an initial cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports to Canada, growing to 70,000 over five years. China will reduce its tariff on canola seeds, a major Canadian export, from about 84% to about 15%, he told reporters.

“It has been a historic and productive two days,” Carney said, speaking outside against the backdrop of a traditional pavilion and a frozen pond at a Beijing park. “We have to understand the differences between Canada and other countries, and focus our efforts to work together where we’re aligned.”

Earlier Friday, he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged to improve relations between their two nations after years of acrimony.

Xi told Carney in a meeting at the Great Hall of the People that he is willing to continue working to improve ties, noting that talks have been underway on restoring and restarting cooperation since the two held an initial meeting in October on the sidelines of a regional economic conference in South Korea.

“It can be said that our meeting last year opened a new chapter in turning China–Canada relations toward improvement,” China's top leader said.

Carney, the first Canadian prime minister to visit China in eight years, said better relations would help improve a global governance system that he described as “under great strain.”

He called for a new relationship “adapted to new global realities” and cooperation in agriculture, energy and finance.

Those new realities reflect in large part the so-called America-first approach of U.S. President Donald Trump. The tariffs he has imposed have hit both the Canadian and Chinese economies. Carney, who has met with several leading Chinese companies in Beijing, said ahead of his trip that his government is focused on building an economy less reliant on the U.S. at what he called “a time of global trade disruption.”

A Canadian business owner in China called Carney's visit game-changing, saying it re-establishes dialogue, respect and a framework between the two nations.

“These three things we didn’t have,” said Jacob Cooke, the CEO of WPIC Marketing + Technologies, which helps exporters navigate the Chinese market. “The parties were not talking for years.”

Canada had followed the U.S. in putting tariffs of 100% on EVs from China and 25% on steel and aluminum under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Carney’s predecessor.

China responded by imposing duties of 100% on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25% on pork and seafood. It added a 75.8% tariff on canola seeds last August. Collectively, the import taxes effectively closed the Chinese market to Canadian canola, an industry group has said. Overall, China's imports from Canada fell 10.4% last year to $41.7 billion, according to Chinese trade data.

China is hoping Trump’s pressure tactics on allies such as Canada will drive them to pursue a foreign policy that is less aligned with the United States. The U.S. president has suggested Canada could become America's 51st state.

Carney departs China on Saturday and visits Qatar on Sunday before attending the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland next week. He will meet business leaders and investors in Qatar to promote trade and investment, his office said.

Associated Press business writer Chan Ho-him in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, center, arrives to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, Pool)

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, shakes hands with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)