Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele told US President Donald Trump on Monday that mass incarceration is the price of national safety, framing it as a path to "liberating" Americans from crime and terrorism.
Speaking during their meeting in Washington, Bukele said El Salvador's success in reducing violence came not from soft measures but from decisive crackdowns. "We turned the murder capital of the world into the safest city in the Western Hemisphere."
Bukele drew a parallel with the US, telling Trump, "You have 350 million people to liberate, but to do that, you must imprison some." The remarks come amid criticism of both leaders' hardline approaches to crime and immigration. "You cannot just free the criminals and think runs going to go down magically, you have to imprison them so you can liberate 350 million Americans that are asking for the end of crime and the end of terrorists," Bukele stressed.
