Gangbusters! How Nayib Bukele went from Trump target to American super-ally
SHUBHAM GHOSH
San Salvador, El Salvador: President Donald Trump might have liberals tearing their hair out with his controversial decisions in the first two months since assuming office for the second time, but among the global allies he has made is Nayib Bukele, his counterpart from El Salvador.
The Central American leader, who has been in power since June 2019, posted a short video on social media soon after the White House deported several Venezuelans to a notorious prison in his country. It showed men in shackles being marched off an aircraft and into prison, where their heads were shaved.
Bukele was even seen taunting an American judge who tried to block the Trump administration’s decision to deport the Venezuelans under a centuries-old law with a post on X saying, “Oopsie… Too late” accompanied by a laughing emoji. Trump and his team were more than elated with the president even thanking Bukele and saying, “We will not forget!”
So who is Nayib Bukele?
Bukele, who became the president for the first time at the age of 37 and swept his re-election bid last year, is often called the world’s “coolest dictator” for his slick and casual style. Born in the capital city of San Salvador on July 24, 1981, he first gained fame as the mayor of the capital between 2015 and 2018 before becoming president.
Born to a businessman father of Palestinian descent and a prominent leader of El Salvador’s Muslim community and a Roman Catholic mother, Bukele comes from a priviledged background.
He dropped out of Central American University to work in the family business. He started his own advertising firm and worked closely with FMLN (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional), one of El Salvador’s two major parties.
When he was 31, Bukele became the FMLN mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán, a small town outside the capital. However, he was expelled from the FMLN over differences in 2017. The same year, he formed a party called Nuevas Ideas.
Bukele ended the two-party dominance in El Salvador politics which has prevailed since the end of its civil war in the early 1990s by becoming the president two years later. He captured the limelight for his efforts to eradicate corruption and gang-related crime. While his policies proved effective, critics accused him of undermining human rights. Bukele is married to Gabriela Rodríguez de Bukele, a psychologist and ballet dancer. They have two daughters, Layla and Aminah.
An unlikely ally
El Salvador’s recent agreement with the US to house deportees of any nationality has increased Bukele’s global visibility and he has positioned himself as a crucial Trump ally.
Hailing the unprecedented agreement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in February that El Salvador, “in an extraordinary friendship” to the US, “agreed to the most unprecedented and extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world.”
Bukele’s efforts to get close to Trump started even before El Salvador accepted members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang at its Terrorism Confinement Center. In fact, Donald Trump Jr attended the inauguration of his second term in June 2024.
He also appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the US in February 2024 where he asked conservatives to “put up a fight” against the “global elites” and get their country back.
“The people of El Salvador have woken up, and so can you,” Bukele said as he received a warm reception at the event which has become heavily pro-Trump in recent years.
It is not that Trump has always had a cordial relationship with Bukele. At the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Trump accused the Salvadoran leader of sending murderers from his country to the US to bring down the crime level on his own soil.
But Bukele’s efforts to curry favor with the Trump camp seem to have paid off as the US president leader praised him on social media after the deportations were made for “understanding of this horrible situation, which was allowed to happen to the United States because of incompetent Democrat leadership”.
Why Bukele is toeing Trump’s line
Bukele’s affection for Trump has many reasons. First, by offering to house criminal illegal immigrants from the US, the Salvadoran president has managed to avoid Trump’s wrath over undocumented migrants from his own country. This helps the Bukele administration which is trying to get the Central American country’s fragile economy back on track.
The second reason is Bukele’s domestic gains. The US also sent among the deportees 23 members of MS-13, a notorious Salvadoran gang, including two top leaders. In a post on X on March 16, 2025, an excited Bukele said receiving those people would help his country “finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants” of the gang.
According to one report, the Salvadoran president bluntly asked Rubio during his visit to El Salvador last month to send the MS-13 leaders back.
During Joe Biden’s tenure, the US Department of Justice accused the Bukele administration of secretly negotiating with certain gang leaders. It was also claimed that the Salvadoran officials had asked the gang members to keep the homicide numbers low and were rewarded with privileges in jail. Salvadoran officials were also accused of letting the MS-13’s top leader escape despite the US seeking his extradition.
Bukele perhaps sought the new American administration’s favor because he was worried that his authority could be threatened if his alleged collaboration with the El Salvador will also be getting $6 million from the US for housing deportees, which Bukele said “a very low fee but a high one for us”.