Trump Promises to Help El Salvador Develop Nuclear Energy

Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed a memorandum of understanding with El Salvador on Monday in which America agreed to help the country develop “civil nuclear energy,” both to fuel the national power grid and for scientific and medical development.

The deal was one of several major agreements Rubio and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele announced following their private meetings in the country on Monday.

Rubio arrived in El Salvador on Monday as part of his first international tour since becoming America’s top diplomat, which began in Panama on Sunday. Rubio, America’s first Hispanic secretary of state, has declared the Western Hemisphere a major priority for his State Department, following directives from President Donald Trump to dedicate more time and effort into foreign relations with countries close to the United States.

Bukele offered Rubio a warm welcome to the presidential residence, where he met the First Family before engaging in official meetings.

The result of those meetings was, in part, a memorandum of understanding on nuclear energy. As per the text of the document published by Bukele’s office, the memorandum commits America to helping El Salvador “in the development and implementation of energy solutions that will contribute to energy security in El Salvador and favor mutual cooperation in areas such as national security, nuclear energy, advanced technology, and radioactive waste disposal.”

The agreement includes “development of nuclear infrastructure, strengthening regulatory and scientific capabilities, and the promotion of joint development and investigation projects with the goal of prompting the responsible use of nuclear energy in El Salvador and the region.”

The memorandum emphasizes that both parties are committed to “the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and with the promotion of peaceful and responsible civil nuclear energy.”

The State Department celebrated the agreement as “an initial step towards establishing a robust civil nuclear partnership” in its announcement of the deal. Memoranda of this kind, it asserted, were “important diplomatic tools developed during President Trump’s first term in office that lay the foundation for expanding strategic ties between the United States and its partners.”

Bukele has served as president of El Salvador since 2019, spending most of his first term focusing on reversing the country’s status as the murder capital of the world and combatting the malign influence of organized crime syndicates such as Mala Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the 18th Street Gang.

His law enforcement campaign has been tremendously successful, turning El Salvador into one of the region’s most peaceful countries. Opposition media has admitted that Salvadoran gangs “do not exist” anymore as they did before his tenure, even as they express concern with the outsized executive power that Bukele used to fight them, and Bukele regularly touts one of the highest nationwide approval ratings in the world.

With the gangs defeated, Bukele announced in March that he would begin a process to receive approval from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to expand nuclear energy development. Rafael Gross, the head of the IAEA, described the initial meeting with Salvadoran officials at the time as positive.

The administration of former President Joe Biden suggested in September that it was open to helping El Salvador develop nuclear energy and signed a memorandum of understanding with Kenya fo ra similar deal. Biden did not have time to organize any concrete cooperation on the matter with El Salvador, however, before Trump’s return to office.

Salvadoran Foreign Minister Alexandra Hill Tinoco praised the United States as her country’s “greatest and most trustworthy partner” in remarks alongside Rubio on Monday while signing the memorandum of understanding. She noted that boosting the power grid was only one of several potential benefits of the agreement.

“This memorandum of understanding also opens the doors to develop nuclear applications for essential sectors such as medicine, agriculture, water resource management, and safe waste management,” she asserted. “This will also build our capacity for research, innovation, and sustainable development.”

In addition to the nuclear issue, Rubio and Bukele announced an agreement in which El Salvador was willing to take in illegal immigrants of all nationalities, and U.S. citizen convicts, to house in his “mega-prison,” the complex housing many of the country’s most dangerous gang members. Bukele said in a message on social media that the fee America would pay for this service was “relatively low” for Washington but a large sum for El Salvador to invest in infrastructure and development, making it a good deal for both sides.

Absent from public conversations during Rubio’s visit was any discussion of China. China has aggressively pursued relationships with Central and South American countries through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global plan in which China offers predatory loans to vulnerable countries to erode their sovereignty. El Salvador signed onto the BRI in 2019 and, under Bukele, as received heavy Chinese regime investment to fund tourism ventures, sports facilities, and a massive national library.

In April, Bukele’s government announced its intention to develop a Free Trade Agreement with communist China.

While the BRI featured prominently in Maduro’s stop in Panama – the Panamanian government agreed to exit the program by allowing current agreements to expire – Rubio’s trip to El Salvador did not feature any public discussion on undue Chinese influence.

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