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Donald Trump rarely accepts advice, especially from international figures who frequently seek to praise and compliment the American leader.

However, the Central American nation's authoritarian leader Bukele has followed a distinct approach by urging the Trump administration to emulate his actions in removing so-called “corrupt judges.”

The call for Trump to take action against the American court system also received backing from Trump allies, such as an X post by one-time supporter the billionaire, who has in the past amplified Bukele's calls to impeach US judges.

Unprecedented Threats to Judicial Independence

Analysts note that the leader's latest intervention occur of unmatched dangers to court autonomy and individual judges in the United States, and during a period where the Trump administration is employing comparable strong-arm tactics used by leaders in nations such as Turkey, the European state, the Asian nation, and his native El Salvador to weaken government oversight.

Bukele's online statement recently was just the latest in a string of provocations and allegations he has made against the American judiciary, such as a spring assertion that the US was “experiencing a court takeover,” and his mockery of a federal judge's ruling to stop deportation flights transporting suspected illegal immigrants to his nation's harsh prison system.

Attacks on Federal Judge

Bukele's demand for removal was also issued amid social media attacks on Oregon justice Karin Immergut by presidential advisor Miller, attorney general Pam Bondi, Elon Musk, and Trump personally in a recent media briefing.

The judge had issued restraining orders preventing the administration from deploying the national guard, first in the state then in California. Trump has been eager to dispatch soldiers into the city, which the president has characterized as “battle-scarred” based on limited, non-violent demonstrations outside the city's federal building.

Record of Targeting Justices

Miller, Bondi, and Musk have a long record of attacking judges who have ruled against presidential directives or in other ways impeded the government's policy goals. Before returning to power this year, the president urged his supporters against judges presiding over his civil and criminal trials, who were then inundated with intimidation and harassment.

Monitoring groups, police departments, and judges themselves have pointed to a increased climate of threats and intimidation in the period since he returned to the White House.

Increasing Threat Statistics

According to information collected by the US Marshals Service, in 2025 through the end of September, there were over five hundred incidents to nearly four hundred US justices, leading to 805 investigations. This year has already eclipsed 2022, and 2024, and is likely to top 2023's high of 630 threats.

The threats are not just happening at the federal level. Data from Princeton's research project indicates that there have been at least fifty-nine instances of intimidation, harassment, stalking, or physical attacks committed against judges on the local level in 2025.

Analyst Analysis on Root Causes

Specialists say that the intimidation are a result of the rhetoric coming from senior administration figures.

In May, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published a comprehensive report alleging that “harmful and highly irresponsible statements from Trump administration members and supporters coincide with escalating aggressive posts on social media.” It recorded “a fifty-four percent increase in calls for removal and physical intimidation against judges across digital networks from the first two months 2025, the initial period of the president's term.”

Heidi Beirich, the founder of GPAHE, said: “Trump’s threats against judges have definitely driven online vitriol at judges and demands for impeachment. Attacking the judiciary is another move in Trump’s march towards strongman rule.”

Global Strongman Tactics

That march towards autocracy has been common in recent years in several nations, including by Bukele.

In 2021, immediately after starting a new term despite constitutional prohibitions, Bukele’s allies in congress voted to remove the nation's attorney general and five judges on the supreme court. The judges, who had angered him by ruling against coronavirus measures, made way for new appointees selected by the leader.

The move echoed the Hungarian leader's overhaul of Hungary’s court system in 2018; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s judicial purges recently; and efforts at comparable actions in the Middle Eastern state and Poland.

Weakening Judicial Independence

Analysts explain that the threats and verbal assaults in the US can be viewed as attempts to weaken court autonomy in a system that provides no simple method for the president to dismiss judges the administration opposes.

Leonard, an associate professor at the university who has studied democratic decline in democracies, said the Trump administration had taken cues from the models set by strongmen abroad.

“The government is looking around at these successes and setbacks. They know they’re not going to be able to pass any laws that would weaken the courts,” she said.

Citing instances such as Miller’s relentless assertions of broad executive power, she noted: “They directly criticize the courts by repeating over and over that it is not a equal branch in the government structure.

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

The professor said: “Judges' sole safeguard is people’s belief 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 sitting government, which is, of course, massively problematic for judicial review and for democracy.”

Coercion Methods

Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at the Ivy League school, has documented the use of “autocratic legalism” by the likes of Orbán and the Russian, and has warned about rising dangers to judges in the US.

She pointed to a series of termed “harassment deliveries” this year, in which judges have received unsolicited pizza deliveries with the recipient listed as a name, the child of Judge Esther Salas, who was killed at the residence in 2020 by a assailant targeting the judge.

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

“Federal judges are guarded by the Secret Service and the Marshals Service. And those are both dedicated police units that sit structurally inside the federal agency. And Pam Bondi has been spearheading the criticism on justices.”

Government Goals

Regarding the administration’s objectives, 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