El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele Is Donald Trump’s Jailer-for-Hire
Nayib Bukele swept to power in 2019 by presenting himself as an insurgent outsider who was going to clean up corruption in El Salvador. In reality he has waged war on democratic rights and turned his country into a MAGA prison camp.
When Nayib Bukele took office as president in El Salvador, he bet everything on his relationship with Donald Trump. That was a risk, but it turned out to be a good strategic calculation when Trump returned to the White House in 2024. (Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images)
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has become a poster boy of the international far right and a key ally of the Trump administration, offering his country’s prison system as a MAGA labor camp. We spoke to journalist Hilary Goodfriend about the political context that made Bukele’s rise possible and the prospects for resistance to his iron-fisted rule.
This is an edited transcript from Jacobin’s Long Reads podcast. You can listen to the interview here.
Daniel Finn
What was the political backdrop in El Salvador at the point when Nayib Bukele first ran for office? What was the balance sheet in particular from the record in office of the FMLN [Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front], the former guerrilla movement that had transformed into a political party?
Hilary Goodfriend
Sorry, but this article is available to active subscribers only. Please log in or become a subscriber.