This Bloomberg article reports that Bolivia has declared the United States ambassador "persona non grata," meaning he is no longer welcome in the country. At this point the U.S. State Department, of which ambassadors are the in-country representatives, has not announced whether a replacement will be named for Ambassador Philip Goldberg.
Typically, the next step would be for the U.S. to eject the Bolivian ambassador leaving open the possibility that relations between the two nations will be downgraded from "embassy" status to "mission" status or perhaps even to the withdrawal of diplomatic recognition altogether.
The step already taken represents a further deterioration in U.S.-Bolivian relations, and a sign that the Bolivian central government is moving away from the normal functioning patterns of sovereign states. Such behavior may well provide a casus belli for the lowland eastern provinces that are already considering separation from the Andean core.
