In 2015, El Salvador averaged more than 18 killings a day, earning it the grim title “the murder capital of the world.” In all of 2025, the entire country recorded 82. That’s not a typo. Eighty-two murders in a year, for a nation of six million people. The transformation is so great that the U.S. State Department now rates El Salvador safer to visit than France or Spain.
The new safety-first mandate has reaped rewards. Tourism hit a record 4.1 million international visitors in 2025, with the coastal stretch known as Surf City drawing 2.1 million of them alone. The World Surf League Championship Tour returns to Punta Roca this summer. Hotels are booked. The IMF confirmed the economy grew around 4% in 2025, driven by a construction boom and record foreign investment.
What happened? His name is Nayib Bukele, and he may be the most interesting leader on the planet right now. The 44-year-old dropped out of college to run his family’s advertising firm before deciding he could do a better job running a country. He wore leather jackets with jeans, backwards baseball caps, and aviator sunglasses while his rivals wore suits. He built a social media following averaging 16 posts a day before his fellow politicians knew what one was. In 2019, running under a new party he created himself, he swept into office, defeating the two political establishments that had traded power since the country’s civil war ended in 1992. His campaign promise was simple: make El Salvador safe from the gangs.
The Turnaround
President Bukele delivered on his promise. In March 2022, after a single weekend in which gangs killed 87 people in 72 hours, he declared a state of exception and began the most aggressive anti-gang crackdown in the country’s history. Roughly 90,000 suspected gang members were arrested. MS-13 and Barrio 18, the two organizations that had effectively operated as shadow governments in poor neighborhoods—taxing bus rides, extorting shop owners, recruiting children—were effectively shut down. The homicide rate fell 98% from its 2015 peak.
El Salvador is now open for business. Bukele, who has styled himself the “CEO of El Salvador,” has removed obstacles and regulations that once strangled growth. “Now we can grow faster, offer better infrastructure, and generate a fertile ground for companies,” he said. He recently signed the first reciprocal trade agreement in the Western Hemisphere with the United States, eliminating tariffs on Salvadoran goods. The country is building a new Pacific international airport, has signed a nuclear energy cooperation agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy, and became the first nation in Latin America to receive NVIDIA’s most advanced AI chips, which are being run on geothermal power from a volcano.
In 2021, Bukele made El Salvador the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, putting the Central American nation on the global crypto map. Digital nomads and tech investors have been pouring into a small coastal village called El Zonte. What had once been an obscure surf town is now known as “Bitcoin Beach.”
The Price Of Peace
The gains have not come without controversy. Amnesty International has called the crackdown “state violence,” citing mass detentions, suspended due process, and hundreds of deaths in custody. Critics at home and abroad have raised questions about democratic backsliding and the concentration of power in one man’s hands.
Bukele’s response has been characteristically unfazed. When a U.S. diplomat warned of “a decline in democracy” in El Salvador, he updated his X bio to read “the coolest dictator in the world.” And when pressed on the criticism, he’s been direct: “I don’t care if they call me a dictator,” he said in 2025. “I’d rather be called a dictator than see Salvadorans killed in the streets.”
The general public agrees. His approval rating at press time was 94%—one of the highest of any leader on earth. The popular sentiment may best be summed up by Arnulfo Crisóstomo Mazariego, who sells pupusas and sodas at a street stand in San Salvador. Speaking to NPR, he recalled that he spent years paying MS-13 around $250 a month just to stay in business. When the crackdown ended the extortion, he took the money and got a long-overdue eye operation. He has heard the human rights arguments. “I have seen children killed because they didn’t want to do a favor for the gangs,” he told NPR. “Where were human rights then?”
What was once the most dangerous country in the world is now signing trade deals, hosting surf tournaments, and building nuclear reactors. “El Salvador will never again be held hostage by terrorists,” Bukele declared last year. Looking at the numbers, it’s hard to argue.
Her Excellency
From Miss El Salvador to Ambassador to the U.S., Milena Mayorga Has Had A Wild Ride
Milena Mayorga has spent her life representing El Salvador. In 1996, she won Miss El Salvador and finished in the Top 10 at Miss Universe. A two-decade-long television career followed, anchoring the country’s longest-running morning show. Now, she is El Salvador’s Ambassador to the United States. We sat down with the Central American beauty to talk about her career and country.
You grew up during El Salvador’s civil war—what is your earliest memory of violence or instability, and how did that shape who you became?
Even though there were hard times in El Salvador, my family and I never had to flee the country. Our whole life was there in San Salvador, and I was blessed with a pretty normal childhood. My family owned a lot by the beach, in what we now know as Surf City, and we would go over the weekends to relax and get away from the city. I remember watching from a distance shots fired and bombs, and yes, it was scary, but we were lucky to never be in a situation where our lives were threatened. Many families lost one of their loved ones. My dad was kidnapped, but my family was blessed to have him back safe and sound. Unfortunately, that did not stop after the civil war, because in the 1990s, we also had organized crime all over El Salvador, and the massive deportation of young gang members from Los Angeles created what we consider domestic terrorist organizations: Barrio 18 and MS-13 gangs. My family also suffered because of gang violence. One of my cousins was abducted while he was jogging by one of the most notorious gang members. They asked my family for money, and they murdered him. The perpetrator is in jail, and those family members had to leave the country. Only Salvadorans know what we have gone through, and that is why we are thrilled by the transformation of our country thanks to President Nayib Bukele. It is a very painful past, but now we see a prosperous future where families have tools to build a better life.
Donald Trump bought the Miss Universe Organization the same year you competed in it, 1996. Now you’re representing El Salvador to his White House. What is that like?
I started working on a TV show at the age of 14, then participated in several beauty pageants before stepping into Miss Universe and making it to the top 10 finalists. That experience consolidated my career as a TV host and opened new opportunities for me. Having the opportunity to represent my country in such a remarkable way is one of my fondest memories. If the grown-up Milena had told young Milena that later in life she was going to meet President Trump in the Oval Office as an Ambassador, I would not have believed it. President Bukele introduced his cabinet members to President Trump during the historic visit to the White House, and it was a full-circle moment in my life. Both President Trump and myself were in different moments in life back when we first met, but that was the door to get to where we are in life today.
You hosted El Salvador’s longest-running morning show for years—what is the most valuable thing you learned as a journalist that you still use today as a diplomat?
From those years in television, I learned how it is to work on tight deadlines and schedules, I got to know my country from one corner to the other. If I had to pick one thing, it is the closeness with the people—that was definitely my favorite part and motivated me to go into politics. My husband saw my passion for it, and he became my campaign manager. He pushed me in the right direction when it came to the now-or-never moment, and, thanks to that popularity and hard work campaigning, I gained my seat in Congress. That came with a price, because then the political violence episodes started within the party I was elected for. They couldn’t understand why a woman coming from the media had her own point of view about what was best for the country. By that time, San Salvador Mayor Nayib Bukele was also doing a great job, which created backlash against him within the political party he was in. That created a bond between us, because we both had convictions that put us on the spot and ultimately got us kicked out of the parties. I tried to compete as an independent candidate for Congress, but a resolution of the Supreme Court in El Salvador blocked that attempt. Then I got a call from President Bukele, who offered me the position I am in right now, and the rest is history.
What made you switch your attention from journalism to politics?
The need for change in my country. Even though I was privileged in many ways, that does not mean that I was not aware of the needs of my people. I saw that the country needed something better than all the suffering of parents, children, siblings, and a whole country that was bleeding with double-digit daily rate murders. I thought that I had to go beyond reporting news, and I had to make life-changing decisions in Congress. My grandma was a politician in Venezuela; she was the first woman to be a candidate for the presidency in her country. She was a city mayor, governor, and also was very active in politics, so I believe it runs in my blood to be involved in politics.
When President Bukele called to offer you the ambassadorship to the United States in 2020, what went through your mind? Was it an easy decision?
I had to face a lot of political and gender violence, so this decision was a way out of that episode in my life. I felt like I was losing my wings and my voice. But when President Bukele reached out, he said that if I kept trying to be an independent candidate, it was going to be political suicide. Fighting the “corrupt pact,” as I called them, was not easy. I thank President Bukele because he trusted me by offering me this position to show that even when we come from different backgrounds, we can work hand-in-hand to achieve what is best for our country. I am grateful that I made that decision because I feel that I am in the right place, making history for El Salvador.
Trade deals, nuclear energy, AI infrastructure, a new airport city, record tourism—how did all of this happen in less than a decade?
President Bukele rebranded El Salvador. He made bold decisions in fields such as security, economics, and technology. We have several big companies from the U.S. operating in El Salvador thanks to his vision, and of course, we are a Bitcoin country. That opened El Salvador to the world. It started with a simple but very bold decision: to start with security and open the door to credibility, investment, and international partnerships. El Salvador shifted from being defined by insecurity to becoming one of the fastest-changing stories in the region. According to recent data from UN Tourism, El Salvador ranks as the third fastest-growing destination globally, with a 92% increase in international arrivals compared to pre-pandemic levels and over 4 million visitors in 2025. That shift in perception also came with conversations on energy diversification, including nuclear energy, investment in AI and digital infrastructure, and a growing role in global innovation discussions. The country has taken a historic step by signing a cooperation framework with the U.S. to explore nuclear energy development, part of a long-term vision for diversification and energy security. At the same time, El Salvador has positioned itself in the global technology conversation in unexpected ways, from becoming one of the first countries to integrate NVIDIA B300 AI chips into sovereign infrastructure to building digital public services like DoctorSV, developed in collaboration with Google, which is already transforming access to healthcare at scale.
You’ve described your mission as changing El Salvador’s story—what is the most misunderstood thing about El Salvador?
El Salvador has changed faster than the world has updated its perception of it. For years, the story was defined by violence and instability, but that is no longer the full picture. Today, El Salvador is undergoing a profound transformation that is visible in its economic performance, its tourism growth, and its increasing integration into global conversations on innovation and investment. What is often misunderstood is the scale and speed of this change—and the fact that it is being driven by a deliberate effort to reposition El Salvador as a modern, forward-looking nation. President Bukele is not rebuilding a country—El Salvador is completely reborn from scratch thanks to his vision, with enormous improvements like schools, more GDP destined to education, hospitals with modern equipment, and world-class healthcare. That is why he has a 94% approval rating.
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of Maxim.