El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele arrived in Washington, D.C., on Sunday ahead of his Monday meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House.
The meeting comes as the White House has been ordered to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man they “mistakenly” deported to El Salvador. Bukele has agreed to accept alleged gang member migrants deported from the U.S., having so far locked up more than 250 in a notorious Salvadoran prison.
Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that the U.S. and El Salvador are “working closely together to eradicate terrorist organizations, and build a future of Prosperity.”
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) April 13, 2025
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump and Bukele “will discuss El Salvador’s partnership on using their supermax prison for Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members and how El Salvador’s cooperation with the United States has become a model for others to work with this administration.”
On Saturday, the Trump administration was ordered by a federal judge to provide daily reports on the location and status of Abrego Garcia and what steps the Trump administration is taking to “facilitate” his return to the U.S. The administration confirmed that he is alive and being held in the notorious prison in El Salvador, but did not provide any action the U.S. is taking to help with his return.
The Supreme Court also unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must return Abrego Garcia.
Taking in the migrants has provided an economic boon for Bukele. His government has received $6 million for taking deportees, which Bukele described as “a very low fee for them, but a high one for us.”
SUPREME COURT ORDERS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RETURN MISTAKENLY DEPORTED MAN FROM EL SALVADOR
El Salvador was one of the tens of dozens of U.S. trade partners on which the Trump administration enacted a 10% tariff. Yet less than a week after the tariffs were announced, Trump announced a 90-day pause on most of them. The U.S. is the main purchaser of Salvadoran goods. Of the nearly $6.5 billion in goods exported from El Salvador in 2024, $2.1 billion went to the US, according to the central bank.
The State Department additionally downgraded its travel advisory on El Salvador to the lowest level. Bukele celebrated the change, calling it the “U.S. State Department’s travel gold star.”
