The ‘Bukele Model’ May Be Another Victim of the Democratic Tsunami | The Lighthouse

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The electoral defeat of Donald Trump’s Republican Party could have a collateral victim in Latin America: Nayib Bukele. The Salvadoran president has made his alliance with Trump one of the pillars of his international strategy and a source of political support for his project to concentrate power. But the electoral tsunami on November 3 could upset that balance.

With Democrats in control of both chambers of Congress, the relationship between Washington and San Salvador will be subject to much more intense scrutiny. Immigration agreements, security cooperation, human rights violationsand US support for the Salvadoran government could become the subject of investigations and congressional hearings.

Trump’s defeat is not only a setback for the Republicans. It also calls into question Bukele’s strategy of aligning himself with Trumpism in exchange for a blank check to consolidate power.

The Democrats’ newfound control of both houses of Congress is one of the greatest electoral victories in 50 years. The shockwave was so powerful that they managed to displace Republicans from key positions of power in traditionally conservative states such as Texas and Arizona. The victory was so sweeping and profound that Trump accepted it without raising the specter of election fraud.

In the wake of this routing, one of its potential collateral victims could be Nayib Bukele, whose alignment with the Republican Party has placed him in direct confrontation with the Democratic Party and the anti-Trump machine.

While foreign policy remains fundamentally in Trump’s hands, the Democratic Party now takes on much greater significance in US relations with El Salvador. The new majority will have the opportunity to influence the drafting of international cooperation budgets and the conditions under which Washington maintains its relationship with the Bukele administration.

Its most important tool will be the power to oversee and scrutinize relations between Washington and San Salvador. A Democrat-controlled Congress could become a megaphone for addressing issues of human rights, democracy, and security in the relationship between Trump and Bukele.

With Democrats at the helm of the legislative branch, the United States can authorize bipartisan delegations to El Salvador, question any Trump official who has ties to the Salvadoran government, and request information regarding agreements between the two countries. The Democratic majority becomes a platform from which to hold Trump and the Republicans accountable for decisions involving the Bukele administration.

Congressman Robert Garciawho could become chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has already indicated that he will make use of these powers. The opposition’s strategy will be to launch a prolonged campaign to publicly expose the Trump administration’s alleged abuses, with an eye toward the 2028 presidential election.

The scandal-laden relationship between Washington and Bukele could become one of the issues subject to the most scrutiny.

The first step for this opposition majority will be to place Democrats in leadership positions in Congress and at the helm of committees related to Central America. In the Senate, Virginia Senate Tim Kaine He could replace Republican Jim Risch as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Kaine, one of at least five Democratic legislators who have publicly confronted Bukele, currently serves as vice chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and has called Bukele an “aspiring dictator.” Together with Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen —considered as a potential leader of the Democratic majority— Kaine has introduced a bill to impose sanctions on Salvadoran officials and others involved in human rights violations at the international level. The same bill calls for the release of Salvadoran political prisoner Ruth López.

In the House of Representatives, Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro could chair the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, while Gregory Meeks is seeking to head the broader Committee on Foreign Affairs. Both have already demanded explanations regarding the agreement between Washington and the Bukele administration to detain individuals deported from the United States at CECOT.

Pressure could just as well come from the House Oversight Committee—which could fall under Garcia’s leadership—as from Homeland Security, whose next chair could be Bennie Thompson. He and Jamie Raskin —a possible future chair of the Judiciary Committee—called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio in April 2025 to make public the agreement with El Salvador to send more than 200 people to CECOT and other Salvadoran prison facilities. In 2025, Garcia and Van Hollen traveled to San Salvador to demand the return of Kilmar Ábrego García, an immigrant who had been wrongfully deported to El Salvador.

The deployment of Salvadoran military personnel to Haiti could also put Bukele on the radar of Congressional Democrats who have advocated for TPS for Haitians. This military intervention, which has received widespread attention in the US press, could also come under scrutiny due to the funds it receives from the United States and the role that funding plays in potential human rights violations against the civilian population.

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Bukele’s relations with the United States are intense, with much of his underpinning hidden in the darkness of the Salvadoran dictatorship. A Democratic majority guarantees, at the very least, the possibility that US citizens like me can exert pressure to reveal how US funds and Washington’s own institutions facilitate the deterioration of human rights in El Salvador.

This will be easier because Bukele has personally attacked a handful of members of Congress who, starting next January, will have more power — and for whom the Salvadoran president has fostered the perception that he wants to meddle in US domestic politics.

Trumpism is on the way out, and — contrary to the expectations of faithfuls of Bukele’s Nuevas Ideas party — Trump will not defend the Salvadoran dictator when the chips are down. Bukele and his lobbyists decided to bet on a single side, but the US political landscape is much larger and more complex. The minds behind the dictatorship refuse to understand this.

Ricardo Valencia is an associate professor of communications at California State University, Fullerton. Find him on X: @ricardovalp.