El Salvador is Sending Thousands of Troops to El Salvador to Fight Haitian Gangs. It Has Trump’s Blessing.

President Donald Trump gave Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele his blessing to expand military operations in Haiti, a development that could reshape the fight against gangs while keeping Washington at a distance.

"Do what you have to do," Trump told Bukele during a Tuesday call, Axios reported, citing sources briefed on the conversation. The exchange came as Bukele prepared to deploy thousands of troops following an ambush that left four Salvadoran military personnel missing. Haiti's government has agreed to the expanded operation as well, according to the report.

El Salvador announced Wednesday that it was sending as many as 2,000 troops. Sources told the outlet that figure could double or triple, raising the prospect of a substantially larger intervention in a country where successive international security efforts have struggled.

The immediate priority is recovering four Salvadoran aviation technicians ambushed October 18, according to The Miami Herald. Their fate has given Bukele a personal stake in a mission whose ambitions extend to dismantling Haiti's gangs.

Three days after the ambush, Bukele warned gang leaders that further military action would follow unless the missing personnel were returned alive. "We have already finished with the gangs in El Salvador, and we can finish with you too," he wrote on X in Haitian Creole.

Bukele's deployment carries potentially far-reaching consequences for Haiti, where gang violence has resulted in the killing of more than 5,700 people this year. The country has been without a president since Jovenel Moïse's assassination in 2021.

Haiti's electoral council postponed presidential elections until next year because of the ongoing violence, which has not been quashed.

Salvadoran personnel have participated in the U.N.-established Gang Suppression Force that failed to rein in gangs. Rep. Brian Mast, the Florida Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized the international security response as costly and ineffective. "Now the fight is personal to them and the fight will be taken to the gangs," Mast told Axios. "The U.S. wants to be out of this and not spend millions on nothing." Trump's reported encouragement does not establish a formal American commitment to supply or direct the operation.

However, Bukele's expanded force appears to be operating alongside that initiative and Prince's company under a bilateral agreement approved by Haiti earlier this week.

Bukele had previously proposed acting as a U.S. proxy in Haiti, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio wanted to avoid that arrangement. Requests for American drones and transport aircraft were officially denied, another source told the outlet.