PoliticsdiplomacyBilateral Relations
US and El Salvador: Closer Than Ever Before?
When United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared this past September, in commemoration of El Salvador’s national day, that the two nations 'had never been closer,' the statement landed with the polished finality of a diplomatic press release, yet it demands the rigorous scrutiny of a historian. On the surface, the assertion holds water; the public camaraderie between Presidents Donald Trump and Nayib Bukele is a masterclass in modern political stagecraft, playing out across social media platforms where tough-on-crime rhetoric and mutual admiration create a compelling, if superficial, narrative of alliance.This performance is underpinned by tangible, increased collaboration in security, a domain where interests have found a rare point of convergence. However, to accept this at face value would be to ignore the deep, often tumultuous currents that have defined US-El Salvador relations for decades—a relationship historically marred by intervention, civil war, and the complicated legacy of immigration.Professor Erik Ching’s work reminds us that the Salvadoran perspective is not monolithic, and the current warmth must be weighed against a past where American influence was as often a source of instability as it was of support. The strategic embrace of the Bukele administration, with its controversial, albeit popular, security policies, represents a pragmatic, if uneasy, pivot for Washington, which has long struggled to balance its stated principles of democratic governance with its strategic objectives in the Northern Triangle.This newfound 'closeness' is less a renaissance of friendship and more a transactional alignment of immediate interests, a partnership forged not in shared democratic ideals but in a mutual desire for regional control and the management of migration flows. The true test will be whether this alignment can survive the inevitable shifts in domestic politics in both capitals, or if it will become another chapter in a long history of complicated and conditional alliances, where the rhetoric of unity often obscures a more complex and less flattering reality.
#featured
#El Salvador
#United States
#diplomacy
#bilateral relations
#security cooperation
#Nayib Bukele
#Donald Trump
