Shortly after the Trump administration deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador this weekend, the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, posted a three-minute video on social media. It featured shackled men being marched off a plane over a dramatic electronic soundtrack and into prison, where they were shaved bald.
Mr. Bukele also taunted the U.S. judge who unsuccessfully ordered the flights turned around, posting on X, “Oopsie … Too late,” with a laughing emoji. Secretary of State Marco Rubio shared the video, as did Elon Musk. Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Bukele online, saying, “We will not forget!”
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| President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has been accused of undermining democratic institutions. Marvin Recinos/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
The world’s ‘coolest dictator’
Mr. Bukele uses social media to project a slick and casual look — often wearing a backward baseball cap and aviator shades — and to respond to criticism of his iron-fisted approach to crime and violence.
In spring 2022, after a surge in gang violence rocked El Salvador, the government imposed a state of emergency that has been in place ever since. Mr. Bukele empowered police and the military forces to carry out mass arrests, which human rights groups say have allowed him to bypass due process and have ensnared people who have no gang ties.
Many of the 85,000 Salvadorans apprehended have disappeared into the prison system, held for years without trial and without their families knowing if they are alive.
Mr. Bukele has also been accused of undermining democratic institutions. He has embraced the criticism, referring to himself as the world’s “coolest dictator.”
Adding to his tough-on-crime persona are the highly produced videos and photos that his government regularly releases. They feature shirtless men in handcuffs or prisoners working in factory-like conditions. And they often include footage from the forbidding Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT, a hulking site that can house up to 40,000 inmates.
An alliance with Trump
Mr. Bukele’s embrace of emergency security powers and his promotion of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin have earned him praise in Mr. Trump’s inner circle.
He was given a standing ovation at the conservative CPAC event last year and recently met with Mr. Musk at a Tesla plant in Texas.
Last month, Mr. Bukele took Mr. Rubio on a sun-drenched tour of the presidential residence outside San Salvador. Afterward, Mr. Rubio announced that Mr. Bukele had offered to take in deportees of any nationality, including Americans, and to house them in CECOT — for a fee.
Included in that group, Mr. Rubio said, would be “any illegal alien in the United States who is a criminal of any nationality, whether from MS-13 or the Tren de Aragua,” the Salvadoran and Venezuelan gangs.
In the announcement that accompanied the video, Mr. Bukele wrote that his government had received “238 members of the Venezuelan criminal organization Tren de Aragua” along with “23 MS-13 members wanted by Salvadoran justice, including two ringleaders.” He wrote: “The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.”
A White House spokeswoman said on Monday that El Salvador would receive $6 million for taking in the deportees, who the U.S. government said were members of Tren de Aragua, without offering evidence or the detainees’ names.
The deportation created panic among Venezuelan families, who feared their relatives were among those handed over to the Salvadoran authorities.
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| The U.S. government has offered no proof that the people it sent to El Salvador were charged with a crime in the United States or anywhere else.Office of the President of El Salvador |
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