Podcast: Bukele Sets Stage for Third Term in El Salvador

This is the transcript of episode 79 of the weekly El Faro English podcast, Central America in Minutes.

BUKELE: The agreement I had —or that’s under negotiation— with my wife, is that we go until 2029.

CÁNOVAS: But is that an agreement that the country knows about, or is it internal with your wife?

BUKELE: Internal, I think I already mentioned it.

CÁNOVAS: Your leash agreement. [Laughs]

GRESSIER, HOST: That’s Nayib Bukele six months ago, talking with Spanish Youtuber David Cánovas Martínez. He added:

BUKELE: But what I told her is that, if I run for re-election, my term ends in 2033, so I can’t leave.

GRESSIER: This week: Bukele sets the stage for a third term in El Salvador, Trump’s ambassador-nominee to Guatemala steps down, and the Panama Canal juggles U.S. and Chinese demands.

Bukele registers 2027 candidacy

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has now registered to run for a third term in El Salvador’s 2027 election. This was prohibited under the Salvadoran Constitution, but a series of sweeping constitutional amendments by Bukele’s party, Nuevas Ideas, now allow for indefinite re-election.

On June 29, Nuevas Ideas Secretary General Xavi Zablah Bukele, who is Bukele’s cousin, announced the news on X. “We are ready,” he wrote alongside an image of candidate registration forms for both Bukele and Vice President Félix Ulloa, both signed.

Journalist Edwin Segura quipped: “Bukele meets all the requirements previously established… by him.”

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He’s referring to Bukele’s personal control of each and every branch of government in El Salvador. He took office in 2019 and then ran for reelection in 2024, trampling the ban. His second term would have lasted through 2029, except he shortened it to run again in 2027, this time for six years, not five.

If he achieves his goal, he’ll stay in power until 2033: fourteen years. That’s longer than the last dictator, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, in the 1930s and 40s.

But what Bukele lacks in democratic legitimacy, he more than makes up for in popularity. Recent polling by newspaper La Prensa Gráfica puts his approval rating near 90 to 94 percent. And El Faro English reporting has shown how popularity and fear have come to rhyme in Salvadoran politics.

Bukele has little organized political opposition in El Salvador. Prominent opponents have been arrested or fled for exile. And while the Biden administration flip-flopped on Bukele’s reelection plans, Trump has left little room for doubt.

“El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly was democratically elected to advance the interests and policies of their constituents,” a State Department spokesperson said after El Salvador abolished term limits. “It is up to them to decide how their country should be governed.”

Trump nominee to Guatemala steps down

Next to Guatemala. This week, Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador, Juan Rodriguez, stepped down without public explanation. The Florida international arbitrage attorney who had represented Guatemalan business elites had been heralded by the Guatemalan opposition.

His withdrawal follows months of turmoil over U.S. policy in Guatemala City. Last December, the removal of the country’s top two U.S. diplomats raised eyebrows. The political climate was heating up — and fast.

A June 23 investigation by the Washington Post found that these changes weren’t a standard personnel rotation but the result of a MAGA-pressured purge.

For two years, the U.S. Embassy kept close ties to Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo. In an international coalition, the U.S. defended his inauguration and sanctioned the local politicians, judges, and prosecutors who attempted a coup to prevent him from taking office in January 2024.

Deputy Chief of Mission Patrick Ventrell had been quite vocal in that effort, initially bipartisan. He was the top interim official at the embassy until Ambassador Tobin Bradley arrived after Arévalo took office in February 2024.

Then Trump came along. Bradley, amid uncertainty over Trump’s stance toward Guatemala, quietly kept building on U.S. support for Arévalo.

It was a mutual exchange. Arévalo courted the international community to rebuff local adversaries. And with Trump, Guatemala signed deals on trade, deportations, and the military.

By early 2026, the back-and-forth had faltered. Bradley and Ventrell were out, and the new heads of the embassy threw support behind some of Arévalo’s opponents.

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In an era of Mar-A-Lago influence-peddling, Guatemalan lobbyists pushed for a U.S. pivot in Guatemala, as El Faro English reported in March.

Guatemalan businessman Rodrigo Arenas told the Post that he contracted the lobbying firm Corcoran Partners. Steve Bovo, a partner at Corcoran, is the husband of Viviana Bovo, a top Latin America advisor to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

According to the Post, Christopher Landau, the department’s second-in-command, initially assured Arévalo that the U.S. diplomats’ positions were secure. But within days, he backtracked. He said the decision to remove them was out of his hands.

The opposition celebrated that win. But when Juan Rodriguez announced he would not become the next ambassador to Guatemala, both the Guatemalans and the Trump administration were back to the drawing board.

A tug of war at the Panama Canal

Last, to Panama. Trump has threatened to take back control of the Canal since the start of his second term.

And on Wednesday, he reiterated that the canal had been “given away” and accused China of trying to take it over. He added, “We’re not going to let that happen.”

But in Panama, political leaders face intense internal debates over their strategy of neutrality in the face of pressure from the canal’s two main clients: China and the United States.

Last week, in a session of the OAS General Assembly in Panama, President José Raúl Mulino condemned the increase in detentions of Panamanian vessels in Chinese waters.

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China's Ambassador to the U.S., Xie Feng, claimed the Panama Supreme Court was politically biased when the judges ruled against a Hong Kong company’s contracts to operate two canal ports in January.

The United States and a group of allies including Costa Rica accused China of politicizing maritime trade. According to the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, the U.S. has the authority to intervene in the face of any threats to Panama Canal neutrality.

In 2025, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a deal with Panama to increase U.S. military presence at three Panamanian bases for three years. The decision sparked protests and a lawsuit at the Panama Supreme Court.

The reality is the Panama Canal is running out of water. The new administrator appointed in May, Ilya Espino de Marotta, identified “water security” as a priority. China and the U.S. are the canal’s main customers, but neither is responsible for maintaining water levels.

Panama’s plan to address the shortfall includes a series of megaprojects, most notably the Río Indio reservoir project, which is threatening to displace 38 rural communities.

The canal conflict has attracted close attention in Central America, where countries have proposed alternate shipping routes for years. Guatemala’s Defense Minister told El Faro English last month that they proposed a railroad dry canal to Trump as part of military cooperation on major Guatemalan infrastructure.

This episode was written by Megan Mandrachio, Gabriel Labrador and Leyrian Colón Santiago. Editing by Roman Gressier and sound design by Omnionn. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and YouTube.