El Salvador: Foreign Relations

El Salvador maintains formal diplomatic relations with more than one hundred countries and participates in a network of regional and international bodies, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Central American Integration System, the Central American Common Market, and the Central American Parliament. Formal ties with the United States date to 1863, and the two countries have built an extensive relationship spanning security, trade, and migration, reinforced by a Salvadoran diaspora of more than two million people living in the United States.

As of 2026, the United States remains El Salvador's closest bilateral partner. President Nayib Bukele's government has deepened cooperation with Washington on migration enforcement and counter-gang operations, including arrangements allowing El Salvador to detain deportees, and a civil nuclear cooperation memorandum concluded with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The two governments also coordinate through the Border Security Information Center and the National Passenger Analysis Center, while trade flows under the CAFTA-DR free trade agreement, which has drawn hundreds of U.S. companies into the Salvadoran market.

Beyond its relationship with Washington, El Salvador's foreign policy under Bukele has been centralized within the presidency and marked by selective regional engagement. The government has kept its distance from Venezuela within the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States during the Maduro presidency, while Salvadoran officials, coordinating with Washington, have voiced concern about growing Chinese Communist Party influence across the Western Hemisphere.