The long-running friendship between MAGA World and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele was upheld Monday at the White House.
Bukele has met members of President Donald Trump‘s inner circle multiple times over the years. Most recently, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s former attorney general nominee, met with the Salvadoran president over the weekend ahead of his visit to the White House on Monday.
While the leader of a central American nation with a population of just 6 million would seem like an unlikely ally for Trump, the pair have formed a symbiotic relationship, according to Cornell University professor Gustavo Flores-Macias.
“For President Trump, the ability to send deportees to El Salvador’s maximum-security prison sends a very strong message to people considering entering the U.S. illegally that the consequences could be dire, which serves as a major deterrent,” Flores-Macias said.
“For President Bukele, the close relationship with President Trump has provided a major platform to showcase his government’s ability to turn one of the most dangerous countries into the safest in the western hemisphere, which is expected to bring tourism and investment to the Central American country,” he added.
Trump and Bukele exchanged pleasantries during the highly anticipated meetup, with each praising the other’s virtues.
“It’s an honor to be here in the Oval Office with the president and leader of the free world,” Bukele, 43, said. “We’re very happy, and we’re very eager to help. We know that you have a crime problem, a terrorism problem that you need help with. We’re a small country, but if we can help, we will do it.”
After arriving in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, Bukele earned the coveted honor of being the first president of a Latin American country to visit the White House during Trump’s second term.
“It’s an honor to have you,” Trump said in return. “We appreciate working with you because you want to stop crime and so do we. And it’s very effective. I want to say hello to the people of El Salvador. They have one hell of a president.”
Still, while calling the meeting a “PR win for both presidents” that is sure to get the attention of other leaders in the Latin world, Flores-Macias warned that reports of human rights abuses inside Salvadoran prisons should be taken seriously.
Those concerns don’t seem to be top of mind for the Trump administration. Ahead of the visit, Trump posted a hype video to Truth Social showcasing alleged Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members being locked up in the prison.
The meeting also came as the White House was ordered to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man they “mistakenly” deported to El Salvador. Bukele has agreed to accept alleged gang member migrants deported from the United States, having so far locked up more than 250 in a notorious prison located just outside the capital city of San Salvador.
But during the meeting, Bukele said it would be “preposterous” for him to return Garcia to the U.S. despite a unanimous Supreme Court ruling.
“How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States?” Bukele said, adding that he wouldn’t release him from prison either. “I don’t have the power to return him to the United States.”
Trump interjected to claim the media “would love it.”
“These are sick people,” the president said. Members of Trump’s Cabinet, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, described the Supreme Court ruling as a victory and said it did not compel them to take action because the court has no jurisdiction over a foreign country.
Bukele has called himself a “philosopher king” and even “the coolest dictator in the world.” Both men have pledged to crack down on gang activity in their respective countries and are now working together toward that end.
According to Human Rights Watch, Bukele’s administration has detained 85,000 people in El Salvador, though only 1,000 have been convicted of crimes, raising concerns over wrongful imprisonments. A similar dynamic is now playing out in the U.S.
“Since taking office in 2019, Bukele’s administration has systematically dismantled democratic institutions and concentrated power in the executive branch,” a Human Rights Watch analysis of El Salvador reads.
“A state of emergency enacted in March 2022 remains in effect, suspending constitutional rights. Authorities have committed widespread abuses, including mass arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment of detainees, and due process violations.”
The White House, meanwhile, sees the El Salvador relationship as a way to save money on the cost of housing inmates.
“If [President Bukele] can take these horrible criminals for less money than it costs us, I’m in—but I only do things in accordance with the law,” Trump said on April 7.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that Trump and Bukele “will discuss El Salvador’s partnership on using their supermax prison for Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members and how El Salvador’s cooperation with the United States has become a model for others to work with this administration.”
For Bukele, the arrangement is financially lucrative as well. The government of El Salvador has received $6 million for taking deportees, which Bukele described as “a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.” The State Department has also downgraded its travel advisory on El Salvador to the lowest level, which Bukele called the “U.S. State Department’s travel gold star.”
White House homeland security adviser Stephen Miller told reporters Monday morning that keeping the gang members in the U.S. would cost 100 times more than it costs to house them in El Salvador, and asserted that the Trump administration had already saved thousands of lives through aggressive its deportation measures and shutting down of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The White House released a fact sheet Monday morning listing names of “cold-blooded criminals” who have been deported to the country, indicating that it continues to see the prison deportations as a bragging point.
Yet other controversies have also followed Bukele during his tenure leading El Salvador. He has been criticized for his close ties to China at the expense of Taiwan, with China opening a flashy new library, fishing pier and amusement park in the country two years ago as a “gift” to the country.
Bukele also stands accused of violating El Salvador’s constitution when he sought reelection, which is normally banned for the country’s presidents.
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None of that appears to bother Trump, who has built a relationship with Bukele over several years. The two met in 2019, during Trump’s first term, when Bukele asked for the administration to maintain Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorians. That wish was later granted.
Bukele attempted to meet with former President Joe Biden in 2021, arriving unannounced for a meeting, which Biden rebuffed. But now that Trump is back in the White House, Bukele is as well.
Mabinty Quarshie contributed to this story
