It is Apr. 15, 2025, and the leader of a country of just six million people is dominating headlines far beyond his borders. Yesterday, sitting in the Oval Office, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, that his government would not comply with a judicial ruling ordering the return of a Salvadoran man wrongfully deported and imprisoned in El Salvador’s feared megaprison, CECOT. Despite knowing this could trigger a constitutional crisis in the world’s most powerful democracy, he made the announcement with a straight face. He even smirked at times, aware that his counterpart was pleased with his choice of words.
This is not Nayib Bukele’s first rodeo when it comes to defying court orders. One could say he has built a successful political brand on doing just that.
On Apr. 15, 2020, he crossed a threshold no Salvadoran president had dared approach in nearly three decades. Five years and many blows to democracy later, it may seem unremarkable. But that night marked the beginning of the Salvadoran republic’s slow demise. President Bukele announced he would defy a ruling from the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court, which had ordered him to stop detaining people for violating the mandate to stay home and prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“Five people will not decide the death of hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans,” he tweeted, referring to the justices. “The Government of El Salvador will continue to fully implement Executive Decree 19,” he added, of the measure that authorized the mass detentions. And so they did.
Five years later, Bukele is far more powerful. He controls the Legislative Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General’s Office, the electoral board, the police, the armed forces — every institution that could once constrain him. He is, in effect, the leader of a one-man state, where no citizen is safe from arbitrary incarceration, civil society leaders are constantly harassed, and hundreds of millions of dollars can be opaquely funneled into his crypto-fantasies.
I don’t write this as an outsider observing Salvadoran politics; I’ve been in the trenches, living through the fallout of Bukele’s rise. As a journalist in El Salvador for nearly a decade, I’ve covered his transformation from a populist mayor to an authoritarian president. Along the way, I’ve faced harassment, been personally targeted by Pegasus spyware, and had a government supporter approach me at a bar and threaten to “gouge my eyes out” if I didn’t leave the country. Just another day in the land of freedom, volcanoes, and Bitcoin.
That consolidation of power arguably began on El Salvador’s “Ides of April,” with the first stab at judicial independence. So it goes, Vonnegut would say.
After being treated as a pariah by some governments, including, at first, the Biden administration, Nayib Bukele has found a powerful ally in Washington. Nearly five years after openly defying El Salvador’s top court, Bukele sat across from the most powerful man in the world without fear of reprimand or condemnation. On the contrary: Donald Trump enthusiastically welcomed him in his tight suit and tighter black top, primed for the far-right cameras. It was a happy day for a Trump ally.
The old warnings about Bukele’s “authoritarian playbook” seem long gone. The new U.S.-El Salvador relationship is much warmer. Trump calls him a “friend” and describes him as “a model for others seeking to work with the United States.” Bukele does his part by publicly dismissing Trump’s rivals and fully endorsing his agenda on immigration.
During their meeting, they celebrated the swift deportation of hundreds of alleged criminals and pledged to find ways to expand the program. But what captured global headlines was their defiance of a court order demanding the return to the United States of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran citizen wrongfully deported back to his home country.
In sum, Bukele did not travel as the usual leader of a developing country, hoping to extract a few concessions from the most powerful nation in the world. He arrived at the White House not just as a friendly counterpart but as a smug guru in 21st-century power consolidation.
In under three months, Trump has shaken Washington and sent political tremors across the globe. It’s clear that January 20 wasn’t just a change of tenants in the White House but the beginning of an era in which no institution or tradition appears sacred. Yet one stubborn obstacle has repeatedly frustrated his ambitions: the judiciary.
This is where Bukele’s experience becomes invaluable. Five years ago, he stopped obeying inconvenient rulings. What happened? Nothing, except a clear path to unchecked power.
Some may argue that the U.S. system is more robust, with safeguards that will prevent the consolidation of autocratic rule. But democracies are not invincible and rarely collapse overnight. The road to authoritarianism is often paved with small steps: defiance of the rule of law, targeting of independent judges, and the normalization of contempt.
Bukele has already offered previews of his playbook—refined masterclasses in dismantling checks and balances. When a judicial order to halt deportation flights to El Salvador was ignored, his response was telling. Rather than acknowledge the court’s authority or offer an apology, he reacted with casual disdain: “Oopsie.” As for the U.S. Supreme Court order for the return of Ábrego García, he dismissed it, even joking that he was not going to smuggle a “terrorist” onto U.S. soil.
On Apr. 14, 2025, Bukele moved from an average tropical strongman to the “philosopher king”, as he calls himself on X. A Rasputin of the illiberal. From the most powerful office in the world, he began exporting the model he launched five years ago and has since perfected in El Salvador: one in which the only word that matters is that of an imperial president. And his host undoubtedly paid attention. After all, the success of Donald Trump’s agenda may depend on how far he can subvert the boundaries of democratic norms.
Dear friends in the United States: Beware the Ides of April. Beware the stabbing of your democracy that begins with the blatant defiance of judicial authority. When rulings are ignored, power bends the law to its will, and Presidents start behaving like Ancien Régime kings. And when that happens, nothing is sacred — not even your fundamental rights. So it goes.
