The Japan Times - El Salvador's Bukele flaunts 'iron fist' alliance with Trump

Through a rollout of slickly produced videos featuring chained and tattooed men roughly escorted off planes, Nayib Bukele has won the US president's attention and admiration.

"Thank you President Bukele, of El Salvador, for taking the criminals that were so stupidly allowed, by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, to enter our country, and giving them such a wonderful place to live!" Trump posted on Monday on his TruthSocial platform.

His comments were accompanied by the latest video posted by Bukele featuring heavily staged, militaristic and confrontational clips of migrants arriving in the Central American nation.

Trump's appreciation was quickly reciprocated: "Grateful for your words, President Trump. Onward together!" Bukele posted.

To cement the relationship, the pair will meet at the White House this month, with Bukele promising to bring "several cans of Diet Coke" for his famously soda-thirsty host.

But behind the hardman camaraderie lies raw politics.

For Bukele, accepting hundreds of deportees from the United States "consolidates his image as the leader who transformed security in El Salvador" said Migration Policy Institute analyst Diego Chaves-Gonzalez.

- Gang crackdown -

Since coming to power in 2019, Bukele has subdued his once gang-plagued nation of about six million people.

Dispensing with warrants and due process, he jailed almost two percent of the population and brought the murder rate down from more than 6,500 a year to just 114, according to official figures.

Security remains central to the "iron fist" political brand that makes Bukele one of the most popular politicians on the planet -- with a domestic approval rating hovering above 85 percent.

Welcoming Trump deportees to El Salvador's mega jail CECOT has not just made Bukele a friend in the White House, but also allowed the 43-year-old president to put the signature 40,000-prisoner jail on full display.

The sprawling facility's austere concrete walls and army of masked guards have featured prominently in videos produced by Bukele's government.

Trump's Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even visited CECOT, posing in front of a cell overflowing with seemingly dead-eyed and heavily tattooed men.

- 'Propaganda' -

Both Bukele and Trump have enthusiastically shared pictures of prisoners shackled, shorn and manhandled while simultaneously highlighting and rejecting objections from judges and opponents.

In that sense, Trump appears to be echoing Bukele's political imagery to appeal to his own base of US voters.

"It is a sign that Trump is interested in 'iron fist' propaganda and disobeying judicial rulings," said Salvadoran political analyst Napoleon Campos.

That heavy-handed approach has its risks. The White House was forced into an embarrassing admission on Tuesday that an "administrative error" had seen a Salvadoran man living in the United States under protected legal status swept up in the hurried deportation process and sent to Bukele's prison.

Even so, a recent CBS poll showed 53 percent of voters, and an overwhelming majority of Republicans, approve of Trump's handling of immigration -- a higher approval rating than he receives on the economy.

Aside from political benefits for both men, there is a potential security and economic boon for Bukele.

His government received six million dollars for taking deportees, a fee that Bukele described as "a very low fee for them, but a high one for us."

He also received more than 20 allegedly high-ranking members of El Salvador's most notorious gang MS-13, who were being held in the United States.

Bukele claimed that would help "finalize intelligence gathering and go after the last remnants of MS-13, including its former and new members, money, weapons, drugs, hideouts, collaborators, and sponsors."

And there is the promise of US investment in El Salvador, a country which still has a per capita income comparable to Iraq or war-ravaged Ukraine.

When he heads to the White House this month, Bukele will be hoping for more than warm words and a few cans of Diet Coke as payback for his support.

Y.Kimura--JT