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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from foreign leaders who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

But, El Salvador's strongman president Nayib Bukele has adopted a different approach by calling on the White House to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, including an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has previously amplified the Salvadoran's demands to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Judicial Independence

Analysts say that Bukele's recent intervention occur of unmatched threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the president's team is using comparable strong-arm tactics employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

The president's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of taunts and claims he has leveled against the US's legal system, including a March assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his country's brutal prison system.

Attacks on Oregon Justice

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued during social media attacks on Oregon federal judge Judge Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

The judge had ordered injunctions blocking the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch troops into Portland, which the president has described as “battle-scarred” based on limited, peaceful demonstrations outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Targeting Judges

The advisor, the former AG, and the entrepreneur have a long record of criticizing judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or in other ways impeded the administration's political agenda. Before resuming office this year, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his legal cases, who were then deluged with intimidation and harassment.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and the justices have pointed to a increased atmosphere of risks and intimidation in the months since he re-entered the presidency.

Increasing Risk Data

According to data gathered by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the third quarter, there were 562 incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. This year has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is on track to top the previous year's record of 630 reported incidents.

The dangers are not only happening at the national level. Data from the university's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least 59 cases of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Analyst Insights on Root Causes

Experts say that the threats are a product of the language coming from senior administration figures.

In spring, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report claiming that “harmful and reckless statements from Trump administration members and supporters align with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% increase in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from January to February 2025, the first full month of Trump’s administration.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “The president's warnings against judges have definitely fueled digital abuse at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the courts is another move in the administration's march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in recent years in several countries, such as by the Salvadoran.

In several years ago, immediately after starting a new term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the nation's top prosecutor and several judges on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by new appointees selected by the leader.

The move mirrored the Hungarian leader's remodeling of the nation's judiciary in 2018; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and attempts at comparable actions in Israel and the European country.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be seen as efforts to weaken judicial independence in a system that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges the administration disapproves of.

Meghan Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the White House had learned from the examples set by strongmen overseas.

“The government is looking around at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any legislation that would undermine the judiciary,” she said.

Pointing to instances such as the advisor's relentless claims of broad presidential authority, she noted: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

“They continue to reframe the debate by emphasizing their claim that the president has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how separation powers work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is public trust in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding trust in courts may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for court oversight and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has written about the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” recently, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting Salas.

“Everyone understands what it means. ‘Your address is known. We’re coming for you,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the federal police. And those are both dedicated law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been leading the attacks on justices.”

Administration Aims

On the administration’s aims, the expert said that “removing a US justice is almost certainly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently