Bukele offers Trump his mega-prison for criminals captured in the United States

The governments of the United States and El Salvador signed an agreement on Monday with two implications that will have an impact on the entire region: on the one hand, the Central American country agreed to receive in its prisons criminals captured in the United States, including American citizens. And on the other, Washington promised to encourage El Salvador in its development of nuclear energy.

“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” President Nayib Bukele wrote on his X account. “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee. The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.”

The agreement was reached during the visit by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to the Central American country as part of his first tour of the region. Bukele described the agreement as something “unprecedented,” while Rubio praised the Salvadoran president as a leader “consistent” with the interests of the United States.

According to previous statements made by Rubio this weekend, among the inmates to be sent to El Salvador’s prisons are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, although it has not been specified what other types of criminals are planned to be sent to the Central American country.

El Salvador has the largest prison in Latin America, the Center for Confinement for Terrorism (CECOT), where more than 20,000 gang members from Mara Salvatrucha 13 and Barrio 18 are imprisoned, the two most powerful Latin gangs in the region that were dismantled by Bukele.

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