Bukele and the US relationship, another open front for Biden in Central America

USA He accuses him of violating the independence of powers. Watch He reproaches them for financing the opposition. Washington relations and The Savior “They are not solid,” and they are another open front for Joe Biden in Central America.

SIGHT: Bukele sends military and police to areas with high homicide rates in El Salvador

Washington has cut financial aid and San Salvador is preparing a law to oversee the contributions of “foreign agents”, including US entities, to organizations critical of Bukele.

• Alleged perpetrators of rise in homicides in El Salvador taken to prison
• Bukele asks the Congress of El Salvador to approve a law on foreign agents
• The US refuses to conspire against Bukele’s allied Congress in El Salvador

“They are not solid. We are at a very difficult time with the government of El Salvador (…) We cannot look the other way when there is a decline in democracy, ”said the head of the US diplomatic delegation in San Salvador, Jean Manes.

Wrapped in huge popular support, Bukele, a 40-year-old millennial, came to power in 2019 and won an overwhelming majority in Parliament in 2021.

Upon taking office on May 1, the new ruling Parliament dismissed the magistrates of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, whom Bukele had criticized for blocking his anticovid plans, and removed the attorney general.

In September, the new Constitutional Chamber interpreted an article of the Magna Carta to give the green light for Bukele to run for reelection in 2024, despite the law prohibiting it.

“The government has created the perfect scenario where it has no obstacles to promote its policies,” said Eduardo Escobar, executive director of Acción Ciudadana, an anti-corruption NGO in El Salvador.

-Friend of Trump, not of Biden-

The arrival of the “outsider” Bukele augured good relations with Washington. Conservative liberal and then critical of China for “not respecting the rules of trade”, he visited Donald Trump in the White House and called him “ally and friend.”

“Trump only asked him not to let Salvadorans go to the United States (…) Biden asks not only El Salvador but the countries he works with to fight corruption, and the Bukele government to respect democracy , the separation of powers, ”explained the former Salvadoran ambassador in Washington, Rubén Zamora.

For US President Joe Biden, corruption and problems with democracy are the root cause of the growing Central American migration to the United States.

The situation with Bukele adds to the questioning of democracy in Nicaragua, drug trafficking in Honduras and corruption in Guatemala.

“It is possible to think that the United States can make decisions that could affect the country at one point,” Escobar said.

In the United States live 2.5 million Salvadorans, who with their remittances contributed 5,918 million dollars to the Salvadoran economy in 2020, more than 20% of the country’s GDP.

-The omnipresent China-

Washington cut aid to the Salvadoran state through its cooperation agency USAID and redirected it to civil society in the fight against corruption.

El Salvador reacted with a non-reimbursable cooperation agreement of 500 million dollars for infrastructure with China.

The United States is concerned “also about the rapprochement it is having with other countries such as China, which are challenging it for hegemony in the region,” says René Martínez, a sociologist at the University of El Salvador.

Bukele often responds irreverently to criticism from the international community. He recently called himself a “dictator” or “emperor.”

“The government fights with anyone who dares to question its decisions, and that has even happened with its main partner,” Escobar said.

– “Foreign agents” –

Recently, the Bukele government presented a draft Law on “Foreign Agents” to Congress.

With this law “the prohibition of foreign interference is sought and foundations and front NGOs are prevented from disguising as donations, which is clearly an intervention to sponsor political affairs,” said the Minister of the Interior, Juan Carlos Bidegain.

The UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Association, Clement Voule, expressed on Twitter his concern on Wednesday about the proposal “without ensuring the participation” of civil society.

-Negotiations with the IMF-

All this occurs at a time when El Salvador negotiates with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) an agreement of 1.300 million dollars to clean up its coffers. Its public debt is equivalent to almost 90% of GDP.

Gerry Rice, a spokesman for the IMF, recently said that El Salvador should “re-evaluate” some policies as talks progress.

Especially after the entry of bitcoin as legal tender, volatile but with significant increases in recent months.

“The agreement with the IMF is a separate dialogue, whether relations are tense or not” with Washington, Saúl Baños, director of the Foundation for Studies for the Application of Law (Fespad), told AFP.

The Minister of Finance, Alejandro Zelaya, assured that the negotiations continue, but the reality is that the United States is the one who contributes the most to the IMF.

• El Salvador: Bukele’s complicated relationship with the press (and his government’s attempts to deny it)
• Salvadorans march against Bukele government policies
• Nayib Bukele, the millennial president who looks more and more like traditional dictators
• El Salvador court keeps hundreds of judges forced to leave their positions
• Nayib Bukele says on Twitter that he is “the coolest dictator in the world”

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Deshawn