Last Tuesday, the State Department upgraded El Salvador’s travel rating to a coveted Level 1, a long-sought goal of President Nayib Bukele that designates the country as one of the safest places to travel on the globe.

On Monday, Bukele will receive another cherished American gold star: an Oval Office visit with President Donald Trump that will showcase El Salvador on the world stage and solidify his burgeoning alliance with the most powerful leader in the free world.

The White House visit is a significant achievement for Bukele, whose authoritarian tactics to remain in power were condemned by the Biden administration just a few years ago. For Trump, the kinship is politically useful: Bukele is key to helping him carry out the mass deportations of migrants he relentlessly promised voters on the campaign trail.

“For Bukele it is a validation from the United States. The picture will show to the world that he is not in [the] same club with [Daniel] Ortega and [Nicolás] Maduro,” said Edwin Segura, a journalist and university professor in San Salvador, referencing Latin American leaders long viewed as pariahs. “For Trump, I think, it’s showing the type of political leader he expects: someone willing to collaborate with his plans.”

The White House said the focus of the meeting will be on the U.S. partnership with El Salvador to use its super-max prison to house alleged Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gang members. The mid-March flights of hundreds of Venezuelans to the notorious CECOT terrorism center sparked a multi-week court battle over the cursory process the Trump administration used to move them there.