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Donald Trump rarely accepts counsel, especially from international figures who often seek to praise and admire the US president.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has adopted a distinct approach by urging the White House to emulate his actions in impeaching so-called “dishonest judges.”

His appeal for the president to move against the American court system also received support from Trump allies, including an X post by former close Trump ally Elon Musk, who has previously boosted the Salvadoran's calls to impeach US judges.

Growing Risks to Court Autonomy

Analysts say that Bukele's latest remarks come at a time of unprecedented threats to judicial independence and individual judges in the US, and during a period where the Trump administration is using similar strong-arm methods employed by rulers in countries such as Turkey, the European state, India, and Bukele's own the Central American country to weaken democratic accountability.

Bukele's online statement recently was one more in a long series of taunts and claims he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring claim that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a court's order to stop removal operations sending suspected undocumented individuals to his country's harsh prison system.

Criticism on Oregon Justice

The Salvadoran's demand for removal was also issued amid online criticism on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by White House aide Stephen Miller, former AG Pam Bondi, Musk, and Trump himself in a recent media briefing.

Immergut had issued injunctions preventing the administration from deploying the military reserves, first in the state then in California. The president has been eager to send soldiers into the city, which the leader has described as “war-ravaged” based on limited, peaceful protests outside the urban homeland security facility.

Record of Attacking Justices

The advisor, Bondi, and Musk have a history of attacking judges who have ruled against Trump's executive orders or otherwise impeded the administration's policy goals. Before returning to power recently, Trump directed his supporters against judges overseeing his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, law enforcement agencies, and the justices have highlighted a heightened climate of risks and coercion in the period since he returned to the White House.

Rising Threat Statistics

According to information gathered by the federal agency, in the current year through the third quarter, there were 562 threats to 395 US justices, giving rise to more than eight hundred inquiries. 2025 has already surpassed 2022, and last year, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 reported incidents.

The threats are not only happening at the federal level. Information by Princeton's Bridging Divides Initiative indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of threats, targeting, surveillance, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Threat Sources

Specialists state that the threats are a result of the rhetoric coming from top government officials.

In spring, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a detailed report alleging that “malicious and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating violent posts on social media.” It noted “a 54% rise in demands for impeachment and violent threats against judges across digital networks from January to February 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Beirich, the co-founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have certainly fueled online vitriol at judges and calls for ouster. Attacking the judiciary is one more step in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Authoritarian Tactics

This progression towards autocracy has been common in recent years in multiple nations, such as by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a second term in the face of constitutional prohibitions, the president's allies in congress voted to dismiss the country’s attorney general and five justices on the supreme court. The justices, who had provoked his ire by ruling against pandemic policies, were replaced by replacements selected by Bukele.

The action echoed Viktor Orbán’s remodeling of the nation's judiciary several years back; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges in 2019; and efforts at similar moves in the Middle Eastern state and the European country.

Weakening Court Autonomy

Analysts explain that the threats and rhetorical attacks in the US can be seen as efforts to undermine court autonomy in a structure that offers no easy way for the executive to remove judges Trump disapproves of.

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

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

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless claims of nearly limitless presidential authority, she added: “They directly attack the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a co-equal branch in the separation of powers.

“They persist in redefine the discussion by repeating their argument that the executive has more power than this other co-equal branch, which is not how checks and balances work.”

Leonard said: “Justices' only protection is people’s belief in the legitimacy of their capacity to make those rulings. Individual threats on top of eroding institutional legitimacy may make judges hesitate about decisions that go against the current administration, which is, of course, highly concerning for judicial review and for the political system.”

Coercion Methods

Kim Lane Scheppele, academic of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “authoritarian law” by the likes of the Hungarian and Putin, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of so-called “pizza doxxings” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited food orders with the customer listed as Daniel Anderl, the son of Justice Salas, who was murdered at the residence in several years ago by a assailant aiming at the judge.

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

“US justices are protected by the presidential protection and the Marshals Service. And those are both specialized law enforcement that are placed structurally inside the Department of Justice. And the former AG has been leading the criticism on federal judges.”

Government Goals

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