The US is cutting off foreign military aid to El Salvador despite intense pro-US President Nayib Bukele’s intense lobbying in Washington to counter criticism that he has taken his country on an authoritarian path.
In the omnibus spending and COVID-19 emergency relief bill signed by President Trump on Sunday, it was a provision restricting access for El Salvador – and also Guatemala and Honduras – to a State Department program that finances the purchase of U.S. defense equipment.
The prohibition – imposed by Rep. Norma Torres (D-Pomona), the only Central American immigrant serving in Congress, has been driven – is part of a House Democrats’ initiative to crack down on anti-corruption in Central America.
Although not much greater US security assistance is being channeled by the Pentagon to combat drug trafficking, the ban is nonetheless a symbolic blow to the states as they try to show progress in strengthening the rule of law, Adam Isacson added. the Washington office said Latin America.
“It puts these countries basically on the same level as dictatorships and failed states,” said Isacson, an expert on defense spending. “Only a handful of countries are not eligible for this program.”
Israel, Egypt, and more than a dozen other countries receive approximately $ 5.6 billion annually through the State Department of Foreign Military Finance for the purchase of U.S. military equipment and services. El Salvador has received approximately $ 15 million through the program since 2016, including $ 1.9 million this year. Honduras and Guatemala last received such funding in 2018.
Milena Mayorga, who became El Salvador’s ambassador to Washington this month, said she was surprised by the cut, which she said was contrary to decades of close military cooperation between the two countries. El Salvador was one of the few Latin American nations to join the US-led coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003, and the country’s international airport is one of only two in Latin America used by the US military to anti-narcotics in the region.
“It is of the utmost importance that this decision be reconsidered,” Mayorga said. “Our military will always have to have certain tools to fight uncertainty.”
Bukele took office in 2019, promising to save El Salvador from the deep divisions left by uncontrolled gang violence and systemic corruption in right-wing and left-wing governments that followed the end of a bloody civil war in 1992.
He remains popular at home thanks to a sharp decline in one of the highest figures in the world. But in Washington, he has criticized Democrats and some Republicans for strong arm tactics, such as his decision to send heavily armed troops to the El Salvador Congress last February to pressure lawmakers to approve a loan to fight back. to finance gangs.
Mayorga said the traditional parties that dominated the Congress of El Salvador spared no effort to portray Bukele as an autocrat. But she said many of the president’s initiatives, such as inviting the Organization of American States to lead a commission to investigate transplants, fit with anti-corruption in the U.S. Congress.
“Right now, it’s the most needed support from the US,” said Mayorga, a popular former TV news anchor who, as legislator, angrily parted ways with her conservative Arena party to support Bukele.
Bukele’s government has been trying to improve its position in Washington by signing more than $ 1.6 million in lobbying contracts with three different Washington companies since August.
The federal spending bill also contains a provision that threatens targeted sanctions against government officials in the so-called Northern Triangle countries – El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras – which are considered to undermine democratic institutions. It requires the US president to submit a public list of corrupt individuals within the next 180 days. It is expected to include some of the most powerful politicians in the region, some of whom have been suspected of ties to drug dealers for years.
Foreign aid to Central America has been much negotiated in recent years. In 2019, Trump suspended aid to several countries due to the continuing flow of migrants from the region.
Bukele managed to resume their aid by signing an agreement to allow the US to send asylum seekers from other countries to El Salvador, paving the way for an era of close cooperation with the Trump administration. But even Trump officials quietly expressed concern in May that Bukele’s defiance of El Salvador’s Congress and Supreme Court threatened to be eligible for poverty alleviation.
Elected President Joe Biden has made Central America one of his priorities for foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere. It is unclear whether he will decide to limit military aid to the Northern Triangle. As vice president, he aggressively pushed a $ 750 million package to the region to tackle the causes of migration – poverty and violence, and as president he promised to expand support to $ 4 billion.