El Salvador Perspectives

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 ...

Two long articles about Nayib Bukele's rule in El Salvador appeared today in the US press.  Bukele is on the current cover of TIME magazine, with the caption  "The Strongman -- How El Salvador President Nayib Bukele became the world's most popular authoritarian."  Bukele revels in this kind of spotlight (it dominates his Twitter feed right now) but he has not mentioned the opinion piece in the New York Times titled The High Cost of Safety in El Salvador , perhaps because it does not have a single image of the "coolest dictator/philosopher king" The TIME interview represents Bukele's first interview with an international media journalist in three years. In recent times he is more likely to give an interview to a YouTube influencer or to Tucker Carlson.    The TIME article, written by Vera Bergengruen, is titled  How Nayib Bukele’s ‘Iron Fist’ Has Transformed El Salvador  and explores in depth the remarkable changes, for good and bad, in El Sa...

Anti-mining activist press conference in July Environmental activists in El Salvador continue to be on alert for the possible resumption of gold mining activity in the country. Although the country was the first in the world to ban metallic mining within its borders in 2017, anti-mining advocates worry that preparations are being made in the current government to lift that prohibition. One signal of the possible resumption of mining activity was the October 2022 creation of the General Directorate of Energy, Hydrocarbons and Mines within the ministries of the Salvadoran government.  More concerns were raised when it was learned that El Salvador had become a member of the Intergovernmental Forum on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Sustainable Development (IGF) , a global association of countries coming together on mining issues.  Joining the forum seemed a strange choice for a country which was the first in the world to ban all metallic mining operations. Then in 2023, the...