Who is Nayib Bukele? Meet the Palestinian 'cool' dictator and Trump's ‘BFF’ of El Salvador

Once self-branded as the "world’s coolest dictator", Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s Palestinian-descended, social media-slick president, has emerged as the new Latin-American darling of the Trump administration.

At just 43, Bukele has built a political empire on viral tweets, Bitcoin dreams, and a prison so dystopian it has become the centrepiece of his increasingly bromance relationship with Donald Trump.

From Bethlehem to Bitcoin

Bukele's roots trace back to Bethlehem, the birthplace of grandparents who were part of the early Palestinian Christian migration waves to Central America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Palestinians have long been influential in El Salvador’s political landscape: from Schafik Handal, a leftist guerrilla-turned-legislator, to Antonio "Tony" Saca, a right-wing former president. Bukele, however, is part populist, part technocrat, part digital-age autocrat.

His meteoric rise began at the municipal level. Known as the “millennial mayor”, he earned widespread support in Nuevo Cuscatlán in 2012, and then in the capital San Salvador in 2015. By 2019, his anti-establishment campaign catapulted him to the presidency.

The Nuevas Ideas (New Ideas) party leader's first term was erratic. Public funds were funnelled into volatile cryptocurrency markets. The country became the first in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender and he promoted "Bitcoin Beach" in a bid to become the new crypto-tourism hub. But what truly defined his presidency was a hardline anti-gang campaign that eviscerated civil liberties.

Despite his heritage, Bukele’s stance on Palestine has been notably criticised for the lack of condemnation over Israel's military operations in Gaza. 

Unlike figures such as Handal, who maintained strong ties with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, the pro-Israel leader has branded Hamas as "animal terrorists" and was referred to as "a friend of Israel" and a "partner for cooperation" by the Israeli ambassador to El Salvador in 2015. 

In October 2023, he wrote: "As a Salvadoran with Palestinian ancestry, I'm sure the best thing that could happen to the Palestinian people is for Hamas to completely disappear. Those savage beasts do not represent the Palestinians. Anyone who supports the Palestinian cause would make a great mistake siding with those criminals."

A populist bromance

After a shouting match with Zelensky, a bruising end for unshakeable divine protection for Netanyahu it was the turn for Bukele to cosy up with Donald Trump on his gold armchair.

Ahead of the keynote meeting, the US President called the Salvadoran leader "President B" in a Truth Social post and praised his crackdown on what he referred to as “some of the most violent foreign enemies of the US".

"I look forward to seeing President Bukele of El Salvador on Monday! [...] These barbarians are now under the exclusive custody of El Salvador, Trump said.

On Monday, Bukele finally entered the Oval Office, now a theatre for the Trump administration to flex its executive muscle on foreign policy.

On top of the agenda was a new deportation deal that would place hundreds of immigrants, many with tenuous or unproven criminal links, into Bukele’s maximum-security prison.

The White House visit came after the Supreme Court had ordered the Trump administration to "facilitate" the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to the maximum-security prison.

Despite the ruling, Bukele and White House officials both rejected calls to repatriate Abrego Garcia. "Of course, I'm not going to do it," Bukele told reporters. "The question is preposterous...I don't have the power to return him to the United States."

The expulsion has set off a major legal crisis after the Trump administration admitted he had been deported in an "administrative error," even though a court order blocked it because of fears of gang persecution.

Order, at any cost

Shortly after Trump's inauguration for a second term, Bukele's government offered to receive $6 million from the US to house deportees suspected, without judicial process, of gang affiliation, including alleged ties to Venezuela's Tren de Aragua criminal network.

In 2022, Bukele declared a "state of exception," suspending constitutional rights and giving sweeping powers to security forces. As part of his crackdown on crime, he opened the notorious Centre for Terrorism Confinement (CECOT) in 2023.

The mega-prison is the government’s crown jewel, home to tens of thousands of suspected gang affiliates, many detained without trial. Over 75,000 alleged gang members were arrested in less than two years.

The complex in Tecoluca, 45 miles from San Salvador, is now a central node in Trump’s revived immigration platform. The facility bans family visits, education, or even outdoor recreation.

Human rights groups documented arbitrary detentions, torture, and deaths in custody. Yet his approval ratings consistently hover above 85%.