USA and El Salvador: from criticizing Bukele to congratulating him on his re-election

Driven by the need to cooperate on immigration matters, the Joe Biden Administration in the United States has gone from criticizing the authoritarian tendencies of the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukeleto congratulate him on his re-election in Sunday’s elections.

Hugely popular for his frontal fight against gangs, Bukele swept Sunday’s elections and will serve another five years as president despite the fact that the Salvadoran Constitution prohibits consecutive presidential terms.

The Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, congratulated Bukele and extended his hand to work together, while highlighting the defense of human rights and judicial guarantees as a priority.

A change of tone

Although he pointed out the issue of human rights, his tone is different from that of the Biden Administration at the beginning, when it denounced the “democratic breakdown” of the Government of Bukele in El Salvador for the dismissal of judges in 2021.

“The Biden Administration began with a posture of greater confrontation with Bukele, but it did not work for them“, Michael Shifter, an expert in Latin American studies at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank, tells EFE.

The United States expressed several times in 2022 its concern about the curtailment of civil liberties derived from the state of emergency that Bukele promoted to conduct mass arrests of gang members but that led to innocent people being imprisoned.

The Salvadoran president then raised his tone and accused the Biden Administration of supporting the gang members unlike the previous government of Republican Donald Trump (2017-2021), whom he said did support the security of El Salvador.

And when Bukele announced his intention to seek a second term, something unconstitutional according to jurists and human rights defenders, the United States demanded that he comply with the Constitution.

However, and given the great popularity that the president accumulated in his country, the United States began in the middle of last year to give “very clear signs that he was turning towards a position of accommodation with Bukele”Shifter notes.

The Salvadoran Foreign Minister, Alexandra Hill, visited Blinken in August in Washington and the head of the State Department for Latin America, Brian Nichols, met with Bukele in San Salvador in October.

During that visit, Nichols qualified the tone regarding the constitutionality of Bukele’s re-election by ensuring that this is an issue that should be left to “the decision of the Salvadorans.”

Contain immigration

According to Ricardo Valencia, professor of Communication at California State University, this change in Washington’s position is due to its objective of tackling the migration crisis in the region.

“The Biden Administration says it is concerned about the rule of law, but any concern pales in comparison to its desire to prevent migration”, he tells EFE.

The notable improvement in security in El Salvador is, in fact, a factor that has influenced fewer people to leave the country: the arrival of Salvadorans to the southern border of the United States was reduced by 40% in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Furthermore, the imposition of economic sanctions on the Central American country would harm the living conditions of the population and could lead to an increase in migration.

The economic situation has already displaced crime as the main concern of Salvadorans, since, according to one of the latest published surveys, 32.8% of the population considers the economy to be the country’s biggest problem.

Shifter maintains that, despite the improvement in security, the number of Salvadorans leaving their country remains high and affirms that “in Washington they are concerned because the economic situation is an expulsion factor.”

For this reason, he believes that issues such as judicial guarantees or human rights continue to be discussed but now in a more discreet way.

Asked by EFE, a spokesperson for the State Department pointed out that the reduction in violence has been “at the expense of human rights“, hence “Now is the time to focus on building judicial institutions”.

“This will effectively address gang violence while respecting human rights. El Salvador can do both“, said.