President Donald Trump held a phone conversation with his Salvadoran counterpart Nayib Bukele on Thursday, where he celebrated Bukele as a “role model” for his peers and vowed to support efforts to stop organized crime and illegal immigration. I promised.
Bukele was the second world leader with whom Trump has spoken since taking office, after Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Trump also held a phone conversation with genocidal Chinese dictator XI Jinping shortly before his inauguration on Monday, and hosted four world leaders at his inauguration ceremony on Monday. . Bukele was reportedly invited but did not attend. No foreign leader had attended an American presidential inauguration before this week.
Trump prioritized these calls over conversations with European leaders. This is in contrast to his predecessor, Joe Biden, whose foreign policy consisted almost entirely of outreach to Western Europe.
Trump and Buchel maintained friendly ties during the former's first term in the White House. Bukele has publicly lamented that El Salvador's relations with the United States have deteriorated significantly under Biden, and that he openly supported Trump during the 2024 campaign, saying that Trump could win the election and that he claimed that a legal attack on the organization would help build “the best campaign ever”. The relationship appeared to take a turn last year when Trump criticized Bukele for allegedly improving his country by deporting criminals.
white house Confirmed A phone call between the two leaders late Thursday provided few details about the conversation.
“The two leaders discussed working together to stop illegal immigration and crack down on transnational gangs like Trende Aragua,” the White House readout explained. “President Trump also praised President Bukele's leadership in the region and the example he has set for other countries in the Western Hemisphere.”
The Salvadoran government did not provide its own reading of the conversation. publication Spanish version of White House documents. Bukele himself shared the readout on social media, accompanied only by a “Kissy Face” emoji as commentary.
President Trump has made Latin America and the Western Hemisphere generally a top priority for his second term. This is a shift from the Biden administration, which received hefty criticism for ignoring the region where America is located. Brazil, the region's largest country, follows a campaign that saw Democrats lose a significant share of the Hispanic vote and Hispanic leftists complain that Biden ignored them. failed to have contact with leaders of , Mexico, or Colombia; An anonymous report in the outlet Politico claims that top Hispanic staff members left Because the Biden campaign was “hyper-focused on white people.”
The Biden administration's neglect of Latin America raised important diplomatic and human rights issues following protests in Cuba on July 11, 2021. Biden's staff insists that protesters taking to the streets chanting “Freedom!” are protesting demanding more resources against the Wuhan coronavirus, a claim that has drawn international ridicule, and They argued that no significant action had been taken in response to the human rights crisis on the island. American military facilities.
“Despite the support that President Biden is offering the Cuban people today, this White House has openly acknowledged that the island’s issues are not a priority for this administration.”
Buquer, as the president of a key regional ally, also struggled to get Biden's attention.
“Well, we've always had a job, but I don't think it's a priority of the current administration,” Bukele said while attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February. Ta. “For us, the United States has always been our first partner economically in every way. A large part of our population lives here. In fact, the influence of the United States is in every sense of the word.”
“We are always willing to work.Unfortunately, [Biden] “Management wasn’t really interested in working with us from the beginning,” he continued. “It may be a priority that they don’t have.”
Buchel said at the time that working with Trump was “much better, of course.”
El Salvador relied on U.S. Republican allies to prioritize issues of mutual importance during the Biden era. In April 2023, then-Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) traveled to the country and accused Biden of “alienating” Bukele during the crisis at the US southern border. In response to Bukele's widely successful crackdown on gangs, Rubio said that Biden would “give up on the guys by authorizing people in government to go after them because they're too hardy and too harsh.” I answered by making things worse.”
“And on top of everything else, this is a guy who was friendly and tried to ask the United States for an alliance, and we have a problem with foreign policy. We treat our enemies better than we treat our friends.” he lamented.
Rubio became the first confirmed Cabinet member of Trump's second term this week and the first Hispanic American to serve as secretary of state.
Rubio announcement His first international trip is to Latin America this week.
Buchel claimed in the interview that he believes Trump can return to the presidency. In a conversation with journalist Tucker Carlson in June, Bukele compared the legal attacks on Trump to Salvador's attempts to dissent to bar him from the profession.
“If there's a way to stop him from running…and he's probably in trouble,” Buchel said of Trump. “But if there's no way to stop him from competing in elections, all they do is vote for him more.”
“Stop the candidacy or stop him. But, you know, hit him – you're running the best campaign ever,” Bukele predicted.
Trump, with the exception of Bukele, made comments this summer that appeared to indicate that Bukele had succeeded in eliminating gang violence in his home country by exporting gang members. .
“In El Salvador, murders are down 70%. Why are they down?” Trump asked at the time. “Now he would have convinced you that it's because he's training killers to be great people. No. They're sending killers to the United States, so they're down. ”
In an interview with Carlson, Buquel said that gangs of Salvadoran generals like the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) were actually established in the United States and that their members were deported to El Salvador during former President Bill Clinton's term in office. I was explaining. However, in response to Trump, Bukele only published a message on social media: “Take the high road.”
Buckel ultimately congratulated Trump on his victory and wrote a public message that read, “May God bless you and guide you.”
