FROM EXTRACTIVISM TO RESPONSIBLE TRADE: environmental sustainability, climate crisis and EU – Bolivia commercial relations

This article analyzes the agroexport model of eastern Bolivia through the lens of agricultural extractivism and assesses its compatibility with the European Union’s standards for responsible trade and environmental sustainability. Drawing on the case of the soy sector in Santa Cruz, the article examines how agricultural frontier expansion, driven by intensive natural capital exploitation and export – oriented accumulation, has deepened the regional climate crisis through massive deforestation and intensive agrochemical use, creating a growth pattern fundamentally incompatible with fair and sustainable trade principles. The study integrates agricultural extractivism theory with fair trade frameworks, global value chains, and private standards governance to evaluate the gap between Bolivia’s productive model and the requirements of the European Green Deal (2019), the EU Deforestation Regulation, and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. The article argues that the transition toward responsible, long – term commercial relations between Latin America and the EU requires not only technical adaptations but structural transformations in value chain governance, value distribution mechanisms, and the inclusion of smallholders in environmental certification schemes.