El Salvador

Now, this is very interesting because what this trip home is going to reveal to us is some of the very personal aspects of the Pope.

He's had a deep devotion to St. Oscar Romero, the martyred bishop of El Salvador.

Shot at during mass, killed during mass in 24 March 1980.

If our listeners want more background on that, we have a deep dive episode on the canonization of Rutilio Grande that also tells the story of Oscar Romero.

Again, this is the guy who went down to sip margaritas.

You know, a little good fun there in El Salvador with the MS-13 wife beater, Kilmar Brego Garcia, that kind of a thing.

But anywho, anywho and way, I do want to get you McKenzie Frost because he's the next Senate majority leader, maybe.

I don't know.

And so it's a real, including in the bauxite sector, where a Chinese company called Bosai continues to play a major role, especially as its competitor, which ironically happens to be a Russian company, Rusal, has kind of petered out in recent years.

We go to another small country, Central America, El Salvador.

led by Naeem Bukele, who's been much involved in the politics of the United States, having to do with immigration and people being taken out of this country and put into what appears to be a penitentiary of great cruelty.

I set that aside, however.

That's not China's matter.

China's matter is that there's a lopsided trade relationship with El Salvador.

El Salvador sells $50 million to China and buys $3.25 billion.

I'm presuming this can be leveled out, but not quickly.

Do you expect that to change now after the congressional elections?

I think, John, the dynamics in El Salvador could be some of the most interesting dynamics affected by the U.S. midterm, just because, again, Naibu Kelly, who we actually have to remember started out within the FMLN, actually started out his political career opportunistically within the principal leftist organization, and then became an independent and then created his own party.

And in many ways, his embrace of Trump somewhat cynically, even as he's embraced China for funding.

And so, On the one hand, it is important to acknowledge that Bukele has done some pretty amazing things in terms of turning around the security situation in El Salvador, but at the expense of you know, accidentally jailing maybe, you know, 10% of the 90 plus thousand people who are in Salvadoran jails right now, and as well as largely eliminating a lot of space that NGOs and the press have to express themselves and criminalizing certain types of speech.

So the question now becomes what happens with Bukele when some of these deals where, you know, people deported from the U.S. have been put into Salvadoran prisons and basically disappeared and And, you know, so to the extent that you begin seeing congressional investigations that could probably extend and have outreach with implications for the Bukele government and in its funding from the U.S., because this touches on some U.S. domestic equities, will Bukele essentially shift his tone and be a little bit more cautious in terms of his posture toward the Trump administration, essentially trying to cover his tracks with respect to some of maybe more of the Some of the more cynical aspects of the deals in terms of who he puts in the prison and things like that.

He's done impressive things for El Salvador in terms of security.

I think it's important to recognize that.

But I think, frankly, he has he's a very astute politician who has a lot of exposure that he understands when the Democratic Congress dominating both houses comes in and starts investigating these things, especially in the U.S. immigration domain.

It's because some countries will do the opposite.

Next week, I'm going to El Salvador.

to see for myself on the ground, right? To economy.

But that's because I need to go with Julian.

Just look at what I'm going to tell you.

Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, Dominican Republic have all had some sort of dictatorship or socialist leaders.

Mexico has elected a socialist communist president and the governing party is The GOP is dropping the ball.

Those messages have to get out there.

The VIX jumped 70%, the third largest one-day spike since 1990, while Tesla sank about 9% and Nvidia about 6.5%, and SpaceX plus Tesla together lost over $420 billion in market value.

On the Bitcoin side, Fidelity ETF clients sold about $200 million of coins, but El Salvador still bought another one and now holds 7,827 Bitcoin.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs took in about $75 million and Strategy looks set to buy about 279 more coins via its preferred stock.

Politics got louder too, with Elizabeth Warren expected to chair the Senate Banking Committee, while the White House reviews an SEC proposal to ease crypto broker rules and hyperliquid files to bring perps to US customers.

That's the guy who went down with the father of the year, Kilmer Abrego Garcia.

And that was the guy who was held in the El Salvador jail, remember, for human trafficking and a whole bunch of other stuff.

And so he thinks, you know, that Chris Van Hollen's the perfect guy.

That guy is left, left, left.