El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele on Sunday offered a prisoner exchange to Venezuela, proposing to trade Venezuelan deportees currently held in Salvadoran custody for individuals he described as political prisoners detained by President Nicolás Maduro’s government.
In a post addressed to Maduro on X, Bukele identified journalists, opposition family members, and activists swept up in Venezuela’s electoral crackdown last year, accusing the government of jailing them solely for challenging alleged election fraud. He named 252 Venezuelans deported from the U.S. and detained in El Salvador and proposed repatriating all of them in exchange for the release of an equal number of political prisoners in Venezuela.
The individuals Bukele listed included the son-in-law of former Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González, several political figures taking refuge in the Argentine embassy, and 50 foreign citizens reportedly detained under Maduro’s regime. He also named the mother of María Corina Machado, a prominent opposition leader whose home was reportedly surrounded by Venezuelan police in January.
Bukele said he would instruct El Salvador’s foreign ministry to open communication with Caracas.
Later that night, Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office dismissed the proposal as “cynical,” labeling Bukele a “neofascist” and demanding detailed information on the detainees’ identities, legal status, and medical conditions.
