Tough-on-crime President Nayib Bukele has created positive change in El Salvador. And he doesn't want any USAID money.
El Salvador has been known for years as a place to avoid due to high crime. In 2015, the homicide rate rose to over 100 per 100,000 people, prompting the country's unfortunate designation as the most dangerous country in the Western Hemisphere.
Bukele, elected in 2019, has helped to change that. With a multi-phase plan of war on gangs combined with social innovation, the homicide rate is now among the lowest in Central America, at 2.4 per 100,000.
Did Bukele achieve this success with help from USAID, the shadowy foreign intervention arm of the US government that critics claim is a hyper-liberal front for the CIA? Well...yes, and no.
Does Bukele want USAID funding? No.
Most governments don’t want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up.
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 2, 2025
While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs… pic.twitter.com/bXpdK29zH5
El Salvador has received millions from USAID, it's true. It's hard to avoid intervention from the hegemon, especially when he's your not-too-distant neighbor. The US has a long history of meddling in Central and South America. Regime change is the most obvious motivation, but there are others, as Bukele explains above.
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To paraphrase, the process goes something like this: the American olive branch is extended. Promises are made: aid where it is desperately needed, from schools to hospitals. Military training. Food. "Democracy."
Then the help arrives...with other agendas added. The olive branch is chopped up to serve as kindling for other fires, a bevy of liberal causes intertwined with the aid. Stipulated. In small print. Money to the very opposition Country X is fighting. Shady Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs). And the purse strings are of course tightly controlled by USAID.
Bukele isn't merely dispelling myths about USAID. In a potentially major diplomatic win, Marco Rubio and the El Salvadoran leader met yesterday at Bukele's home on scenic Lake Coatepeque to discuss a criminal housing solution that could benefit both countries.
The issue: housing criminals in the US is expensive, and given Trump's ambitious deportation push, American facilities are already strained. Bukele has built a massive incarceration compound to house the most violent criminals, and reform those who have committed lesser crimes.
President Bukele of El Salvador has offered to take in some of our convicted criminals, illegal or legal citizens, into their super max prison CECOT in exchange for a small fee..
— Huey Jack (@HueyJackNation) February 4, 2025
Here’s the deal… this place is no joke.
👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
pic.twitter.com/1c2hxjKKwH
The idea: the US pays a fee to El Salvador to incarcerate some of our criminals for a lower price than our government would domestically. That income helps El Salvador to pay for their massive investment in their prison system.
As social media star George Behizy points out, the specter of Central American imprisonment, where one is housed with violent criminals such as MS-13, might serve as a deterrent to thugs in America.
Watch how quickly crime rates in America's blue cities start falling now that convicted criminals could get sentenced to prison in El Salvador.
— George (@BehizyTweets) February 4, 2025
President Trump and Nayib Bukele are playing 3D Chess. pic.twitter.com/L5O2rj24xf
Regardless of where the chips eventually fall, it has been a good week for relations with our southern neighbors. Rubio, who many MAGA loyalists looked at with a sidelong glance for his past RINO tendencies, has, so far, proven adept and on message.
Rubio has had early success in Panama, where he secured a declaration from Panama to end its negotiations with China to purchase the Panama Canal through its Belt and Road initiative--and to enter into talks with the US to do the same.
