El Salvador Perspectives

Family remittances sent to El Salvador set a monthly record in May of almost $900 million. The flow of dollars into El Salvador from those living abroad during the first five months of the year was 16% higher than the same five month period in 2024, a very significant increase according to El Salvador's Central Reserve Bank . Remittances are already one fourth of El Salvador's economy.  The dollars earned abroad, overwhelmingly in the US, have lifted families out of poverty and are one of the chief engines of any economic growth in the country.   Economists interviewed in La Prensa Grafica pointed to Donald Trump's deportation policies as a main driver of the surge in remittances.  Families are sending money out of the US into bank accounts in El Salvador out of fear of being deported and losing access to their assets in the US. "If we look at the behavior of deposits in the financial system, they have grown enormously. The acceleration in remittance sending has oc...

Throughout his presidency, Nayib Bukele has craved the media spotlight and has wanted to be portrayed as one of the world's visionary leaders.  He has found that images of cruelty to persons alleged to be gang members get him publicity around the world, and lots of it. In April 2020 , the global media shared images of half-naked prisoners stacked together like sardines in the very early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, as Bukele vowed revenge for a surge in homicides. The media spotlight would turn back to El Salvador in 2022 to report on the State of Exception and squadrons of heavily armed police and military seizing tens of thousands of persons of the streets with little regard to the innocent persons among them. In 2023 to much fanfare, Bukele announced that he was opening the largest prison in the world. The Center for Confinement of Terrorists or "CECOT" would hold the worst of the worst so they could never terrorize El Salvador again he told his country, and the glo...

The government in El Salvador is trying to address years of lackluster macroeconomic performance.  Despite all the publicity surrounding tourism growth and Bitcoin initiatives, figures released by El Salvador's Central Reserve Bank show that annual  economic growth in El Salvador for 2024  was a very modest 2.6%. Recently Salvador president Nayib Bukele posted on X a plan to infuse liquidity into the Salvadoran economy by advancing payments to medium, small and micro businesses and by paying down government debt held by Salvadoran banks. The funds come from the recently approved loan facility of the International Monetary Fund.   It is hoped that this will kickstart economic activity at the local level. Fitch Ratings described the level to which public debt has climbed during the Bukele administration: El Salvador’s public debt, which we estimate at 87.6% of GDP in 2024, is well above the ratings peer median (2024: 50.3%) and is a key sovereign rating weakness...

There are many developments regarding the US removal of 238 Venezuelans to El Salvador where they were imprisoned in Nayib Bukele's CECOT mega-prison.  Here is a summary with links to news articles: The US government admits that many of them had no criminal records. ( ABC ) A US photo journalist was at the airport and later at the prison to see the arrival of the Venezuelan prisoners and published photos of how they were handled. ( Time ) CBS News obtained a leaked copy of a list of the names of all the Venezuelans deported to El Salvador and imprisoned there.  ( CBS ) Venezuelan families shared the stories of their loved ones who had actually fled from Venezuela and Tren de Aragua, rebutting any suggestion they were part of a criminal gang. ( Beyond the Border ) ( NPR ) ( BBC ). At least two of them were refugees who arrived in the US after extensive vetting by the government and refugee organizations. ( Miami Herald ) Eight women on the flight were not allowed to disembark a...

The weekend of March 15-16 saw the first implementation of Nayib Bukele's offer to the United States to act as the offshore jailers of persons Donald Trump wants to expel from the country. During the visit of Secretary of State Marco Rubio to El Salvador in February, Bukele offered to not only to take back Salvadorans from the US, but also to accept deportees from other nations, and even to imprison US citizen criminals for a fee. From the State Department press statement  at the time: Multiple agreements were struck to fight the waves of illegal mass migration currently destabilizing the entire region. President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully. He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country. And in an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country, President Bukele offe...

Recent articles in English about El Salvador that are worth perusing: The spring of Nayib Bukele’s relationship with Donald Trump  -- El Pais .   A look at the cozy relationship between Bukele and the Trump administration as illustrated by Marco Rubio's recent visit to El Salvador. “Bukelismo,” A Deceptive, Illiberal Model of Peace Spreading from El Salvador to the United States -- ReVista .  Could Musk and Bukele really team up to administer this form of illiberal governance—known colloquially as “the Bukele Model” or “Bukelismo”—in the United States itself? How El Salvador became a model for the global far right  -- Financial Times .   In depth article looks at Bukele's time in office.  Do other nations want to embrace his methods of security which have made him a highly popular leader, or are they enabling the country's slide towards autocracy? Behind El Salvador's prison system that may handle U.S. deported migrants  -- CBS News ....

Donald Trump's advisor Stephen Miller said a short time ago that president Nayib Bukele was offering the US "tremendous levels of cooperation" on immigration, and now we know what he meant.  During the visit of Secretary of State Marco Rubio to El Salvador this week, Bukele offered to sign an agreement not only to take back Salvadorans from the US, but also to accept deportees from other nations, and even to imprison US citizen criminals for a fee. From the State Department press statement : Multiple agreements were struck to fight the waves of illegal mass migration currently destabilizing the entire region. President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully. He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country. And in an extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country, Pres...

Measures the Legislative Assembly passed for Nayib Bukele On January 29, El Salvador's Legislative Assembly gave the second vote to adopt  a constitutional amendment to allow the Constitution to be amended in the future by a single supermajority vote by the legislature.  Up until now, amendments had to be approved by two successive legislatures with a national election in between. That requirement gave the public the chance to vote out of office legislators who supported an amendment before they had a chance to give it final approval in the next term.  Since Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party today possesses such a supermajority in the congress, he can now amend the Constitution anytime he wants by submitting it to a single vote in his rubber stamp legislature. For example, those pesky provisions that limit how long a president can serve in office, can be eliminated with a quick vote and no debate. The constitutional amendment passed with no prior announcement that it would be o...

As the world now knows, Donald Trump will again be president of the United States after a major victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday's election. Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele tweeted his congratulations: What does the return of Trump to the White House portend for El Salvador? Nayib Bukele enjoyed a close relationship with the Trump administration during 2019 and 2020, and in particular with the US Ambassador Ronald Johnson. Bukele   met Donald Trump   on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in 2019 and famously called the American president "nice and cool."  Trump was pleased with Bukele’s willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration’s efforts to control migration and sent multiple high level officials to meetings in the country.  Bukele assisted on migration despite Trump’s attempts to cancel Temporary Protected Status ("TPS") which protects 195,000 Salvadorans from removal, and despite Trump calling El Salvador ...

With the US presidential election a little more than nine weeks away, El Salvador is watching closely. President Nayib Bukele has his closest ties to members of Donald Trump's MAGA movement, but Trump is a fickle friend. Meanwhile Kamala Harris is likely to continue current US policy which now presents a friendly face to El Salvador and no longer denounces Bukele's trampling over principles of rule of law and judicial independence.  Nayib Bukele enjoyed a close relationship with the Trump administration during 2019 and 2020, and in particular with the US Ambassador Ronald Johnson. Bukele met Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in 2019, and several high level officials came to El Salvador to meet with Bukele’s government. Trump was happy because of Bukele’s willingness to cooperate with the Trump administration’s efforts to control migration. Bukele cooperated despite Trump’s attempts to cancel Temporary Protected Status and calling El Salvador ...

Nayib Bukele threw himself a coronation on Saturday. His swearing in for an unconstitutional second term in office was not a celebration of democracy, but the celebration of an unquestioned ruler. One of the hallmarks of Nayib Bukele's rapid rise to exercise unchecked power in El Salvador is his understanding of image.  All of the symbolism of the day was about the power and authority of El Salvador's strongman. There was the honor guard in military dress uniforms, wearing capes while holding automatic weapons. Bukele wore a high-collared jacket with gold braid on the cuffs and collar.  The National Palace had a rapid makeover, replacing artwork and precious century-old tilework with marble and gold paint and red carpets, attempting to summon images of European halls of power, but coming closer to Donald Trump's club at Mar-a-Lago.   Bukele received an artillery gun salute and emerged from the National Palace to receive the tributes from the country's armed forces an...

 In 2019, after he was elected president in El Salvador for the first time, Nayib Bukele made his first public appearance not in El Salvador, but at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.   On Thursday, Bukele made a return trip to speak to conservatives in Washington, this time as a featured speaker at CPAC , the Conservative Political Action Conference.  The conference is attended by pundits, activists and politicians from the Trump wing (which is almost the entirety) of the Republican party. The BBC summarized some of Bukele's remarks: Mr. Bukele told the conference that the next US president must have the will and courage to do "whatever it takes" to overcome the "dark forces" that he said were trying to control the US. He received loud applause for when he attacked institutions including what he called "corrupt judges" and fake news in both his country and the US. He also repeatedly cast an undefined group of "g...