Bukele offers to take U.S. criminals - for a fee
Feb 4, 2025
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele offered to house U.S. criminals in his country’s jails, for a fee. “We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele wrote on social media.,“The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”
Though the legality of such a move would be dubious, U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who met with Bukele in San Salvador yesterday, described the offer as “an act of extraordinary friendship.” Rubio also said that El Salvador agreed take undocumented migrants from any country that have been convicted of crimes, including members of the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gangs.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce called the offer an “extraordinary gesture never before extended by any country.” Tech billionaire Elon Musk quickly endorsed the Bukele offer, saying, “Great idea!!”
Bukele said that criminals deported by the United States would go to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a prison built to house 40,000 people and denounced by human rights groups.
Inmates at CECOT leave their cells only when they have court hearings by video link from a room in the prison, or to exercise for 30 minutes per day in a large hallway.
(New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters, AFP, Associated Press)
Sheinbaum’s hour
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum painted yesterday’s 11th hour agreement with U.S. President Donald Trump to avoid 25% tariffs on Mexican goods as a win-win. Mexico had agreed to send 10,000 members of its national guard “to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the US, in particular of fentanyl”, Sheinbaum said. In return, the US had agreed to work to prevent high-powered weapons crossing the border into Mexico. “In Mexico we have rocket launchers that come from the US illegally … How can these high-powered weapons get into Mexico from the US?” she asked, hailing Trump’s apparent commitment to fight gun smuggling as part of the agreement. (Guardian)
Sheinbaum told reporters that she had reached out to Trump on Friday, but they were only able to speak yesterday morning. During the roughly 45-minute call, she proposed suspending the tariffs while the two sides worked out an agreement on security and trade, the Mexican leader told a news conference. Trump asked how long she wanted to hold off on the tariffs. “I said, ‘Let’s pause them forever,’” she told reporters, laughing. When he repeated the question, she agreed to a month-long delay. “I’m sure, in a month, we can provide results,” she said. (Washington Post)
Mexico now faces “a critical 30-day test during which it must not only continue its recent progress but also make still more headway on two of the country’s most enduring challenges: drug trafficking and migration,” reports the New York Times.
While some analysts say Trump’s strong-arm tactics in Latin America appear to be working, others say the concessions from Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and now Mexico are largely cosmetic, and come at a significant diplomatic cost.
It is unclear, for example, what additional Mexican troops will do to stop fentanyl trafficking on the border, notes the Washington Post. While most of the fentanyl seized by U.S. authorities comes from Mexico, and the amount crossing the border has increased tenfold in the past five years, most is smuggled by U.S. citizens recruited by cartels. More than 80 percent of the people who have been sentenced for fentanyl trafficking at the southern border are U.S. citizens, reports the New York Times.
More on Trump Relations
“Guatemala’s President Bernardo Arévalo has been careful to avoid confrontation. Instead, the Arévalo administration seems committed to discreet diplomacy and pragmatic engagement,” reports Americas Quarterly.
James Bosworth puts the contrasting approaches of Latin American leaders to the Trump 2.0 era into a broader framework — Latin America Risk Report.
“Instead of seeking a new international order, the global South should try to make the current one work—even as the new occupant of the White House seems ready to jettison international norms. Indeed, Trump’s reelection makes such a focus more urgent, even if the global South can’t expect great results while he is in office,” argues Jorge Castañeda in Foreign Affairs.
Regional Relations
Trump has painted the 1977 treaties handing over the Panama Canal to Panama as a Carter administration failure. But declassified documents published by the National Security Archive show that negotiations were a bipartisan effort that spanned four U.S. presidencies, and that Henry Kissinger had advised President Gerald Ford in 1975 that: continued U.S. control of the Panama Canal “looks like pure colonialism,” and wasn’t worth the reputational price.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed Panama’s decision to let its participation in China’s Belt and Road Initiative expire, calling the move “a great step forward” for its ties with the United States, reports the Guardian. (See yesterday’s post.)
Trump’s determination to rename the Gulf of Mexico has put a spotlight on a body of water long afflicted by environmental disaster that nobody has paid attention to, argues Greg Grandin in the Guardian.
Haiti
Heavily armed gangs in Haiti have attacked a Port-au-Prince neighborhood that’s home to most of the country’s elite and had been largely untouched by criminals. Police have demanded help repelling the assault that has killed at least 40 people in Kenscoff. (Associated Press)
Brazil
Brazil’s House and Senate elected new leaders on Saturday — Hugo Motta and Davi Alcolumbre, respectively — whose promise of independence from the executive agenda will pose a challenge for the remainder of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidency, reports Reuters.
“Every year, 6,000 people, mostly young Black men, are victims of state violence. Now, ‘scholarship mums’ are acting as paid researchers in a pioneering programme to provide support to those left behind,” reports the Guardian.
Peru
The green transition has increased demand for zinc, fueling a boom in Peru, where mining threatens local water supplies, reports the Guardian.