Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador and an ally of President Trump, is the Latin American leader who locked up his country’s gangs. Since declaring a state of exception in March 2022, his government has detained more than 90,000 people accused of gang ties and built a 40,000-inmate prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
El Salvador’s homicide rate fell from 106 per 100,000 people in 2015 to 1.3 in 2025. At the White House in April 2025, Trump said Bukele had “done a fantastic job,” and Bukele said, “we actually turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere.”
Bukele has repeatedly criticized Mexico’s failure to defeat its cartels. Speaking to business leaders from more than 20 Latin American countries in February 2025, he said criminal groups “control large sectors of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil” and that “the state is stronger than any criminal organization.”
This month, he told Belizean broadcaster Love FM, “There is no government that cannot eliminate crime.” Haiti is now testing that claim.
Haitian police, backed by Salvadoran troops, struck the headquarters of the 400 Mawozo gang in Croix-des-Bouquets, east of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Bukele announced the strike on X on Nov. 10, saying it also destroyed the home of gang leader Wilson Joseph, known as “Lanmo San Jou.” A Haitian National Police drone task force carried out the attack, which may have killed as many as 20 gunmen. Joseph was away when the strike hit.
On Oct. 16, 2021, 400 Mawozo kidnapped 17 missionaries working for Christian Aid Ministries, an Ohio-based church organization. Sixteen were Americans, one was Canadian, and five were children. The gang demanded $1 million per hostage, and Joseph threatened to kill them if the gang’s demands went unmet. The last hostages regained their freedom after 61 days.
In 2022, the Justice Department charged Joseph with hostage-taking in connection with the kidnapping. Prosecutors said 400 Mawozo claimed responsibility and sought the release of another gang leader, Joly Germine, known as “Yonyon,” who directed the kidnapping from a Haitian prison. The State Department offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Joseph’s arrest. He remains on the FBI’s wanted list.
El Salvador expanded its deployment after an Oct. 18 ambush in the Santo area of Croix-des-Bouquets. Gunmen opened fire on an armored vehicle carrying four Salvadoran aviation technicians attached to the Gang Suppression Force (GSF), the UN-backed multinational force fighting gangs in Haiti. Haitian police later found the burned vehicle in Santo. The four men remain missing.
Bukele warned the gangs, “We have already finished with the gangs in El Salvador, and we can finish with you too.” He sent more than 2,000 troops along with military hardware. UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said about 200 Salvadoran troops fall under GSF command. The rest operate under El Salvador’s agreement with the Haitian government.
Bukele discussed the operation by phone with President Trump. Speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Oct. 31, Trump recounted the call. “He said that he has a big problem with Haiti. They killed some of his people. I said, ‘You’re running your country. You have to do what you have to do,’” Trump said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the exchange on Nov. 8 at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida. “He called the President and made them aware of what he was doing, and the President understood why he was doing it,” Rubio said, according to the State Department transcript. Rubio said El Salvador undertook the operation “bilaterally in agreement with the Haitian officials, to go after the gangs that kidnapped their forces.” He added, “We don’t have troops there, but we’ve been engaged.” Rubio said Salvadoran troops and the GSF needed to coordinate to avoid mistaking each other for gang members.
Axios reported on Nov. 10 that David Howell, the U.S. chargé d’affaires in Haiti, told Haitian officials Salvadoran operations should stop “as soon as possible … until they coordinate” with the GSF. “They are going to kill [GSF] troops or civilians,” he warned.
The U.S. Embassy also filed a diplomatic protest alleging that Salvadoran gunfire struck the embassy during an Oct. 31 gang attack on a Salvadoran convoy. El Salvador’s government rejected the allegation and said its soldiers fired away from the embassy. A source who spoke with Bukele told Axios that Bukele responded, “I checked with Trump. He said do what we have to do,” and asked why “some bureaucrat is fighting this?”
Since the Salvadoran deployment expanded, Joseph has written to the UN secretary-general asking for dialogue and citing concern about civilian deaths. He proposed Nov. 18 as a start date for negotiations. Amnesty International’s Americas director, Ana Piquer, called on both governments to publish the deployment agreement. Dominican President Luis Abinader said his government is providing Bukele with logistical and intelligence support.
After the strike, Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé thanked Bukele on X, writing, “Hats off to President Nayib Bukele for his support and commitment to the national effort against gangs.” He added, “Haiti, Salvador, FRG: the same fight, the same determination!” FRG is the French abbreviation for the Gang Suppression Force. Fils-Aimé also credited the Haitian National Police and the Armed Forces of Haiti and said the collaboration would continue.
Fils-Aimé is scheduled to visit El Salvador next week to discuss the future of the deployment. In a Nov. 3 post on X addressed to Haitians, Bukele wrote, “We can help you defeat them, but we are not your enemies.” He closed with “Haiti will be free.”
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