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Donald Trump rarely accepts guidance, particularly from international figures who frequently attempt to praise and admire the American leader.

But, the Central American nation's strongman president Bukele has adopted a distinct strategy by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing what he terms “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to move against the US judiciary also garnered support from Maga figures, including an social media message by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past boosted the Salvadoran's demands to oust US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts note that Bukele's latest intervention come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the president's team is employing similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in nations such as Turkey, Hungary, the Asian nation, and Bukele's own El Salvador to undermine government oversight.

Bukele's social media call last week was just the latest in a long series of taunts and claims he has leveled against the American judiciary, including a spring assertion that the US was “facing a judicial coup,” and ridicule of a federal judge's order to stop removal operations sending accused undocumented individuals to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's impeachment call was also issued during social media criticism on Oregon federal judge Karin Immergut by White House aide Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Musk, and the president personally in a recent press gaggle.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, initially in Oregon then in California. The president has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on small, peaceful protests outside the city's federal building.

Record of Attacking Judges

The advisor, Bondi, and the entrepreneur have a history of criticizing judges who have blocked Trump's executive orders or otherwise hindered the government's policy goals. Before resuming office this year, Trump urged his followers against judges presiding over his legal cases, who were then inundated with threats and abuse.

Watchdog organizations, police departments, and judges themselves have highlighted a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the months since he returned to the presidency.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to data collected by the US Marshals Service, in the current year through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, giving rise to 805 inquiries. This year has already eclipsed the first recorded year, and last year, and is likely to exceed 2023's high of over six hundred threats.

The dangers are not just happening at the national level. Information by the university's Bridging Divides Initiative shows that there have been at least 59 cases of intimidation, harassment, surveillance, or violence committed against judges on the state and municipal levels in the current year.

Expert Analysis on Root Causes

Experts say that the intimidation are a product of the language coming from top government officials.

In May, the watchdog group published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from White House allies and supporters coincide with rising violent posts on social media.” It recorded “a 54% rise in demands for removal and violent threats against judges across social media platforms from the first two months 2025, the first full month of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of the organization, said: “The president's threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Targeting the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s advance towards authoritarianism.”

International Authoritarian Playbook

This progression towards autocracy has been well-trodden in the past decade in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, right after starting a second term despite legal bans, Bukele’s parliamentary loyalists voted to remove the country’s top prosecutor and five justices on the constitutional court. The judges, who had provoked his ire by rejecting coronavirus measures, were replaced by replacements hand picked by Bukele.

The move echoed Viktor Orbán’s overhaul of the nation's judiciary several years back; the Turkish president's judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Undermining Judicial Independence

Analysts say that the intimidation and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a structure that provides no simple method for the president to remove judges Trump opposes.

Leonard, an academic at Illinois State University who has studied authoritarian backsliding in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by authoritarians overseas.

“The government is observing at these achievements and failures. They know they’re not going to be able to enact any legislation that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as the advisor's persistent claims of broad executive power, she added: “They openly criticize the courts by stating repeatedly that it is not a equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by emphasizing their claim that the executive has greater authority than this judicial branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief in the authority of their ability to make those rulings. Personal intimidation on top of weakening trust in courts may make judges hesitate about judgments that go against the current administration, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, has written about the use of “authoritarian law” by the such as the Hungarian and Putin, and has spoken out about escalating threats to judges in the US.

She pointed to a wave of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unwanted pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the son of Judge Esther Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a gunman targeting the judge.

“All understands what it means. ‘We know where you live. You are a target,’” the professor said.

“Federal judges are guarded by the presidential protection and the federal police. And these are specialized law enforcement that sit institutionally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been spearheading the attacks on federal judges.”

Administration Aims

On the government's objectives, Scheppele said that “impeaching a federal judge is highly not going to happen because it’s so hard to do. {Right now|Currently