The Modern Slave Trade and the Cold Value of Morality

The suspicion had long been in the air even back then - among some journalists, among human rights observers, among those who know this part of the world. Only Trump himself did not see through what Bukele was actually planning at the time. And now the matter is explosive: for every deported Venezuelan, the Trump regime pays money to El Salvador - dollars that flow directly into Bukele's system. But most of those imprisoned, mostly innocent people, no longer served public safety but only a political calculation. They were part of a planned exchange that was carried out last month or in some cases as early as July 2025 - which means Bukele collected money for people he has now released since the deal went through. It would almost be comical if it were not so cold, so cynical, so perfidious - Bukele has cashed in big time. Nayib Bukele had already confirmed this in April with a tweet that revealed more than intended. It was not a diplomatic note, no confidential message between heads of state. It was a public post on X, where the president of El Salvador announced the moral trade with calculated coldness: 252 Venezuelan migrants, deported from the US and imprisoned in El Salvador without trial, in exchange for 252 political prisoners in Venezuela.

"I would like to propose a humanitarian agreement to you," Bukele wrote to Nicolás Maduro, "which provides for the complete return of the 252 deported Venezuelans - in exchange for the release and handover of an identical number (252) of the thousands of political prisoners you are holding." What at first glance looks like an offer of humanity was, on closer inspection, the opposite: it is a publicly displayed proof that human lives in the new world order have long since become political currency - negotiable, convertible, exchangeable one to one. Bukele names names. Not just any. He names them like pawns on a chessboard - carefully placed, highly symbolic:

Rafael Tudares, son-in-law of Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo González. Roland Carreño, journalist, arrested on charges of terrorism financing - in reality a critic of the regime.

Rocío San Miguel, lawyer, security expert, president of the NGO "Control Ciudadano", arrested for alleged involvement in a plot.

And Corina Parisca de Machado, the mother of leading opposition politician María Corina Machado. About her Bukele writes: "She is regularly intimidated, her access to electricity and water is sabotaged."

These mentions were no coincidence. They are not neutral numbers but deliberately chosen faces of resistance, morality put into words. But they did not serve protection. They served dramaturgy. Bukele did not speak here as an ally of democracy but as the architect of a new realism that uses morality only when it promises geopolitical gain. What followed is the real core of the message: Bukele described the Venezuelan deportees imprisoned in his country - those who were deported under the second Trump administration - as criminals. "Unlike your detainees, who have not committed a single crime (...), our detainees are people, many of whom have committed murders, others have committed rapes, and some had already been arrested several times before they were deported." No evidence, no trial, no defense - just a verdict, delivered in 280 characters.

This is how Bukele constructed the contrast that carries his entire logic: there the innocent prisoners of the dictatorship, here the "criminals" of the North. A moral trade, staged on a digital stage.

But this juxtaposition did not withstand reality. Among the 252 Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador, 236 had no apparent criminal record according to our research - including at the time Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a family father from Maryland with a US wife and child, whose deportation and now renewed imprisonment has caused international outrage. The suspicion: they were extradited on mere suspicion, without evidence, without trial. As Bukele openly admitted in his tweet, they were "arrested as part of an operation against gangs such as Tren de Aragua in the United States" - a vague term under which any arbitrary categorization can fit.

The 252 migrants have become bargaining chips - they were locked up in the CECOT, El Salvador's terrorism confinement center. A prison that is more symbol than penal institution: high tech, drone surveillance, 40,000 inmates, no charges. A place of discipline. A demonstration of control, built for cameras and campaigns. And while they sit there in cells, their bodies become arguments. Bukele said: "Unlike you, who hold political prisoners, we have no political prisoners." A sentence that not only shrugs off his responsibility but also obscures the fact that the criteria for "political" in his system are no longer democratically reviewed.

But the central purpose of his action lay deeper. The inclusion of almost 50 foreign prisoners - including German, French, Israeli, Colombian and Argentine citizens - is not a humanitarian act. It is a pressure tactic. Bukele knew: if he makes public that Venezuela is also holding citizens of Western democracies, he will create media and diplomatic movement - not against himself but against Maduro. It is a calculated attempt to present himself as the savior of foreign citizens while he himself imprisons migrants without trial.

"God bless the people of Venezuela," he writes at the end. A sentence that lies like a veil over the cynicism. Because the action behind it is anything but blessed. It is politics with the human being as collateral.

The US, which through its deportation policy under Trump created the basis for this farce in the first place, is put on display and dragged through the arena, remains silent. Europe, although its own citizens are affected, is still struggling for words. Journalistic inquiries were answered with meaningless phrases. And Bukele? He keeps broadcasting. With messages that pretend to be solutions but in reality document the symptoms of a global moral failure.

This "prisoner exchange" was not a humanitarian act. It is a mirror. And what one sees in it is a world in which human dignity is no longer inviolable - but interchangeable.