McDonald's failed in Bolivia. It operated in the country for 14 years and eventually closed all of its locations by 2002 amid cultural rejection from locals and the government.

Aside from Cuba, Bolivia is the only Latin American country without golden arches. This failure was a surprise, since Bolivians love eating hamburgers. Turns out they just prefer to buy them from local street vendors instead of giant fast food chains.

Following the McDonald's failure, Bolivians elected Evo Morales as their President in 2006. He has deep anti-American sentiments and is extremely cautious on allowing western products, brands, and culture into the country. His strong stance specifically against giant US fast food chains even included a plea to the United Nations in which he called their influence "a threat to humanity."

These are pretty strong feelings. Even Venezuela, an ally of Bolivia with similar political and ideological beliefs, has around 140 McDonald's locations. Bolivia rewrote its constitution in 2008 with specific measures to protect the country from foreign interests and place a focus on local businesses and investment. It also included measures to protect the country against large-scale industrial agriculture.

McDonald's has also been criticized for having bad influences on the environment. To provide meat for its food, McDonald's indirectly causing deforestation in rainforest and greenhouse gas emission.

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