Bukele, a Trump ally, leans on Chinese support to bolster his political project

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has turned his foreign policy into a balancing act between two major powers. In March 2019, before taking office, he traveled to Washington and disparaged Beijing: “China does not play by the rules; they do not respect the rules,” he said in English in front of a conservative audience. “They are not a democracy, but they intervene in your democracy.” Six months later, already in the presidency, he celebrated an agreement with a “sister nation”: more than $500 million in non-reimbursable aid from Beijing for infrastructure projects that would boost his popularity.

Seven years later, in March 2026, Bukele will attend an anti-China conference at the invitation of Donald Trump, whom he considers his closest ally. Like a chameleon, the president has changed his tune more for convenience than ideology, analysts say. “Bukele, like all Latin American presidents, is trying to navigate difficult times: on the one hand, he needs to maintain trade, political, and security relations with the United States, and on the other, with China, a potential investor,” says Margaret Myers, senior advisor at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank.

Diplomatic relations between San Salvador and Beijing were still in their infancy when Bukele visited Washington in 2019. Just a few months earlier, in August 2018, former president Salvador Sánchez Cerén had severed ties with Taiwan to establish official relations with the People’s Republic of China. Bukele questioned that decision at the time, warning of “debt traps” and a loss of sovereignty. But he soon changed his tune: in December 2019, he traveled to Beijing accompanied by his brother and advisor, Karim Bukele, and signed a $500 million agreement to build the National Library, a gigantic building that serves as a tourist attraction in downtown San Salvador, and a stadium that promises to be the largest in Central America.

The Chinese ambassador to El Salvador, Ou Jianhong, publicly thanked Karim Bukele for his mediation, attributing the success of the visit to him. Ironically, months earlier, she hadn’t even been invited to the presidential inauguration.

Chinese investment in El Salvador remains limited: barely 5% of foreign direct investment between 2018 and 2021, according to the IMF. What has grown, however, is the import of Chinese products, especially in the automotive sector, where Beijing has now surpassed the United States, Japan, and Mexico — traditionally the country’s main suppliers — after increasing its sales by 400% compared to 2016 levels.

Experts say something similar has happened with other Central American countries seeking permanent investment from Beijing. “China has a great need to export because of its excessive production capacity. In that sense, no matter how small a country is, it will never see it as a customer to be ignored,” Myers said.

Between 2019 and 2024, the Bukele administration held three meetings with representatives of Xi Jinping’s government to reach a Free Trade Agreement, which would create the conditions for China to establish factories in El Salvador, for example; however, the agreement has not yet been finalized. During the Covid-19 pandemic, China donated more than six million doses of the Sinovac vaccine to El Salvador. Bukele publicly thanked Xi. In January, the Chinese Embassy announced the donation of 344,000 computers and tablets for Salvadoran students. “We want to work together to deepen educational cooperation,” the embassy wrote on its X account.

Bukele has used the relationship with China as a counterweight to Washington. During Trump’s first presidency, he cultivated a close relationship with the White House. But with Joe Biden’s arrival, the State Department added officials close to Bukele to corruption lists, and relations cooled. The Salvadoran president then turned toward Beijing.

El Salvador is offering its few natural resources to China. In December 2024, Bukele lifted the ban on metallic mining amid widespread public opposition. Residents of Santa Marta, one of the communities with the greatest mining potential in the country, have reported activity by Chinese companies in the area. This information has not been confirmed by official entities.

According to Nestor Hernández, the Salvadoran director of the Confucius Institute, the organization that promotes Chinese culture, language, and traditions in El Salvador, “China is not seeking to displace the United States in its relations with El Salvador; it is seeking to do trade. It is not seeking to have a cultural presence like the United States or anything of the sort.”

Convenience as a rule

With Trump’s return to the White House, Bukele has re-established a close relationship with Washington. This renewed rapprochement has coincided with a weakening of investigations led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in which MS-13 gang members in U.S. Custody could provide information about their agreements with the Salvadoran government. At the same time, Chinese cooperation continues — library, stadium, donations of school equipment — but the Salvadoran president is now aligning himself with Trump’s agenda, even offering his country as an extension of the U.S. Prison system. Washington has sent dozens of people detained in anti-immigrant raids to the Central American nation.

The leader who warned in 2019 that China “does not play by the rules” now operates in a gray area where expediency is the primary rule. As Myers summarizes: “Latin American countries need to think more carefully about their relations with China. If they cooperate on issues sensitive to the United States, such as security, the reaction could be strong. But China also doesn’t quite know how to protect the investments it has already made. The stage is set for tension.”

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