The Bush administration is preparing to suspend longtime trade benefits to Bolivia. The move was announced last month, but the White House has had to wait until the end of a legally required public comment period that ends today. The administration says Bolivian President Evo Morales has failed to cooperate in the so-called war on drugs. The US has been accused of hypocrisy following UN figures that show cocaine production in Bolivia rising five percent last year compared to a 27 percent jump in Colombia. Colombia is the largest recipient of US aid in the Western hemisphere. On Thursday, Morales spoke at a meeting of Latin American leaders on the economic crisis.

Bolivian President Evo Morales: “It’s not about saving capitalism. Capitalism will never resolve the problems of humanity. Capitalism not only generates a financial crisis, capitalism brings on energetic crisis, capitalism brings ecological crisis.”