From Legal Insurrection

President Nayib Bukele: “God placed a gigantic treasure under our feet.”

Posted by Leslie Eastman 

Back in 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to initiate economic suicide by prohibiting the potential development and utilization of its national resources.

Now, under the leadership of President Nayib Bukele, the nation is looking to reverse course.

The move by Bukele’s predecessor, former left-wing rebel Salvador Sanchez Ceren, reflected the growing rejection of mining by rural communities in central America, devastated by the industry’s adverse health and environmental effects.

Costa Rica and Honduras have both banned open-pit mining and Panama declared a moratorium on new mining concessions last year after mass protests over plans for a huge copper mine.

According to Bukele, El Salvador may be sitting on unmined gold reserves worth an estimated $3 trillion, approximately 8,800% of the nation’s current GDP.

In a series of posts on social media platform X, Bukele projected that the country potentially has “the largest gold deposits per square kilometer in the world.”

According to preliminary studies cited by the president, El Salvador’s gold reserves could be worth an astounding three trillion dollars – representing over 8,800% of the country’s current GDP. Bukele argues that mining just 4% of the country’s gold deposits could generate $131 billion, which would be equivalent to 380% of the current GDP.

Translation: GOD PLACED A GIGANTIC TREASURE UNDER OUR FEET: El Salvador potentially has the highest density gold deposits per km² in the world. Located in the Pacific Ring of Fire, one of the richest areas in mineral resources thanks to its volcanic activity.

But it isn’t just gold that is important. Studies have identified the presence of a wide range of critical metals and rare earth minerals: Cobalt, lithium, nickel, platinum, iridium, titanium, and germanium.

The good news: He has the votes to repeal the inane legislation.

On December 1, Bukele announced that, in addition to gold deposits, El Salvador’s territory hosts “metals of the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions,” news agency EFE reported. The president stated that studies have identified cobalt, lithium, nickel and “rare earth elements used for advanced electronics,” as well as platinum, iridium, tantalum, titanium, gallium and germanium, among others.

The president’s liberal, populist and reformist party, Nuevas Ideas, has the votes needed to repeal the mining ban at any time.

“We need to exploit our natural resources responsibly, as every country in the world does,” Bukele said. He cited examples such as Qatar, Israel, Canada and Switzerland, and reiterated that “there isn’t a single country that has done something as foolish as banning mining.”

Many of the reports cite gallium, a rare metal with a wider array of uses in electronics. But the kicker is that the metal is also needed for thin-film solar cells, wind power generators, and power converters for electric cars.

In other words, gallium is critical for green energy, a fact clearly under-appreciated by eco-activists who are unhappy with this potential policy reversal.

The timing of these discoveries and policy reversals could not be better. As China is now banning the import of rare earth minerals to this country, it would be wonderful to expand our supply chain.

Of course, the environmental activists are unhappy:

This week, Bukele doubled down on his proposal, and his critics quickly responded. They fear that reopening mining could contaminate water sources, especially given the amount of freshwater needed for mining operations and the risks posed by heavy metals used in the process.

“The president claims that ‘responsible mining’ can be done, but there is no evidence to support this claim,” Pedro Cabezas, a member of the Central American Alliance against Mining (ACAFREMIN), told Newsweek. “There are no examples of ‘responsible mining’ that haven’t caused serious impacts. The effects in El Salvador would be terrible,” he warned.

But Bukele makes a persuasive case that a richer country is a cleaner country.

“I understand the concern. El Salvador has 95% of its waters polluted. Imagine if we pollute them further; we’ll end up with 97%, 98% contamination. The reality is that when 95% of your rivers are polluted, you shouldn’t focus on saving the remaining 5%, but on recovering the 95% that was lost,” Bukele argued on Thursday. “If we had 95% of our rivers clean, then we could focus on maintaining the status quo.”

“The only thing we can do is invest billions of dollars to clean up the polluted waters. And to have those billions, we need resources that can easily be obtained from mining,” he added, according to Diario El Salvador.

I think Trump should make sure Bukele gets a front-row seat at his inauguration.