El Salvador’s President Notices Anti-Mining Protest Efforts Shrink after USAID Funding Cut

El Salvador’s President Notices Anti-Mining Protest Efforts Shrink after USAID Funding Cut

The last time we checked on El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, not only had he agreed to take back Salvadoran criminal illegal aliens, but also those from any country…plus violent Americans.

Legal Insurrection readers may recall my previous report on Bukele, which stated that he would open up the country to mining.

According to Bukele, El Salvador may be sitting on unmined gold reserves worth an estimated $3 trillion, approximately 8,800% of the nation’s current GDP.  In a series of posts on social media platform X, Bukele projected that the country potentially has “the largest gold deposits per square kilometer in the world.”

That was approximately one month ago.  Since then, eco-activist agitators have organized massive protests against this economically sensible move.  Here is a sample of that insanity from an “environmental NGO“:

“It’s an absolutely disastrous decision,” said Luis González, advocacy director for the Salvadoran Ecological Unit, an environmental NGO. “[The mining ban] was established after years of struggle, but also because it was technically and scientifically proven that mining is an unviable activity in Salvadoran territory due to the environmental, water and population conditions.”

…“We have to continue resisting an activity that is detrimental to the environment, to water, to the health of the population,” González said. “It’s truly regrettable, because this will further damage an ecosystem that is already damaged, already mistreated, already degraded, which will undoubtedly generate disasters in the medium and long term.”

However, something happened while the activists plotted to work against Bukele’s plans for prosperity: DOGE.

Since then, President Donald Trump has ordered a review of foreign aid that doesn’t align with America First policies. The Department of Government Efficiency has revealed a vast swath of NGO efforts that are based on woke, leftist agendas that harm the country and our allies.

Once the USAID graft was ended, Bukele noticed something interesting about the scale of the protest.

Every political party joined the call, along with 90% of all NGOs, universities, churches, and activist groups. They ran a month-long mainstream media and social media campaign, had the backing of the country’s most powerful news outlets, chose a holiday (Sunday) so no one had to work, organized preparatory events, and more.

This is what they achieved.

It’s clear there is no opposition without USAID money.

Today, the entire local opposition called for a massive demonstration against mining.

Every political party joined the call, along with 90% of all NGOs, universities, churches, and activist groups. They ran a month-long mainstream media and social media campaign, had the backing… pic.twitter.com/y6UJrtWF19

— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) February 9, 2025

This is an important data point, confirming the damage that USAID has done to both our country and others…economically and in other ways.

It will be fascinating to see how fast the economic and political changes occur in other nations now that USAID’s socialist slush fund is gone.

For example, Romania. Romania was plunged into political turmoil last year when populist Calin Georgescu won the first round of the presidential election, which was not the outcome not preferred by the European Union or Romania’s USAID-backed NGOs.

The Romanian Constitutional Court voided the entire election.

Sit and stew on how many of our tax dollars went into the effort.

Romania's outgoing lame-duck president Klaus Iohannis has resigned to preempt an impeachment bid by conservative parties. His term ended in December, and he is deeply unpopular.

Romania was plunged into institutional chaos last year when Calin Georgescu won the first round of… pic.twitter.com/v1s4t71mFe

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 10, 2025

Hot Air’s Beege Welborne brings us up-to-date on Romania’s post-USAID political landscape: The current Romanian president is resigning ahead of the next round of elections.

The damage done by the exposure of USAID’s extensive, expensive meddling could be far-reaching as other countries in Eastern Europe that have governments that were unpopular with the Americans are left to wonder how much of their unpopularity in their own country was bought and paid for with American dollars. And how much of it was in concert with their like-minded globalist bug-buddies in Brussels.

I am sure the next few weeks will bring other truly astonishing revelations.

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