Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau posted something on X that I found interesting recently. "Sometimes a foreigner can provide great insight into your own country," he suggested, and then went on to describe that El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, was fascinated with something we kind of take for granted in the United States.
Sometimes a foreigner can provide great insight into your own country. During my recent visit to El Salvador 🇸🇻, President @nayibbukele recalled that he and his wife were amazed by self-checkout at 🇺🇸 supermarkets — not the technological aspect but the cultural one. Couldn’t…
— Christopher Landau (@ChrisLandauUSA) June 25, 2025
Landau, whose father was a diplomat and who was born and raised largely overseas, said he experienced something similar when he was younger:
I had a similar experience myself in ninth grade. I had just started boarding school in the U.S. after living abroad. I was stunned when the biology teacher, Mr. Lehrbach, passed out a test and said he’d return at the end of the period to collect them. Not one student in the…
— Christopher Landau (@ChrisLandauUSA) June 28, 2025
"Not one student in the class made a peep or shared an answer the whole time," he wrote. "The self-understood high-trust compact made an impression on me that I will remember until the end of my days."
That said a lot to me. As I like to remind people, the world is not the United States, and the United States is not the world. It's a version of a quote that many people like to use derogatorily, but I think it can be just as much a positive as it is a negative. We are the shining city on the hill. We are the country where, yes, you can ring up your own groceries. As small as that is, it's incredibly symbolic.
It's also why I get so mad when I hear someone like Whoopi Goldberg sit in her ivory tower and say that Iranians have it better than some people in the U.S. in modern times or Rosie O'Donnell sit in her Irish ivory tower and cry about how she just had to leave the country, as if she's some sort of refugee who feared for her life. (I'd love for Whoopi to actually visit Iran and Rosie to visit a country like Venezuela or Sudan, where people are literally fleeing for their lives.) As much as I like to pretend people like this are irrelevant, they have platforms, and others listen to them.
While they're more than welcome to their ridiculous opinions, that doesn't negate the fact that it's a privilege to be born here. It's even more of a privilege to come here when you were born somewhere less desirable. And Bukele's statement about self-checkout stations is proof of that. That sort of societal trust is built and earned and was handed down by all of those who fought for it before us and many who are still fighting. It's a cultural foundation that you can't find just anywhere. It's not something that's built overnight, but it's easy to lose. It's rare and precious, and it's the exception to the rule.
Unfortunately, it's declining in the United States.
You probably don't need numbers to tell you that — I think just about anyone over 30 can come up with an example of something they've witnessed over the last 20 years that indicates our decline in trust — but the Pew Research Center has done several studies on this, and the proof is there. I'd venture to guess that it's worse in certain places. Big cities versus rural areas. Places where crime goes unpunished versus those where it doesn't. Blue states versus red.
Many of us in this country — mostly on the left but I've seen it in conservatives and Republicans too — have lost sight of just how much of a privilege it is to be a United States citizen. Even those who live in some of the worst conditions here have a huge lead over people born in much of the rest of the world.
While I can't say I've ever felt that way myself, I can say there have been times when I've grown wary or disillusioned with this country, especially over the last four years. Landau is totally correct. When I began traveling internationally more, I saw it differently. I've written about how much time I've spent in Latin America in recent years, and doing so was like a doctor giving me a shot of medicine. I saw the U.S. through the eyes of the people I met, and it helped me realize just how lucky I was to have been born here.
They still see us as a shining city on the hill when half of our own country does not. They still believe in the American Dream, when half of our own country does not. They still look at us and believe this is a place where anything is possible. That's why many immigrants — the ones who are not here to break the law — are some of the hardest-working people you'll ever meet. They made it here, and they want to take advantage of what we have to offer. They want to take advantage of what we take for granted.
Unfortunately, people like Nayib Bukele seem to understand that more than most Americans these days. He knows what it's like to live in a country of chaos, a country where there is no trust. Before he was president of El Salvador, it was overrun by MS-13 and plagued with gang activity and organized crime. He cracked down hard to restore order, and since it has changed, he's had one of the highest approval ratings of any leader in the world. It's not some sort of forced or faked number you might get from a place like North Korea, either. It's organic. He is truly celebrated by his own people. He gave them what they needed at a crucial moment in time. He restored their ability to walk down the street, go to work, play in the parks, and live without constant fear.
Even more unfortunate is the fact that so many in this country are quick to condemn him while their own house is falling down. Just last week, California-based fashion designer Willy Chavarria used the runway at Paris Fashion Week to condemn the deportation of a gang member to El Salvador's CECOT prison. Bukele responded on X: "We’re are ready to ship them all to Paris whenever we get the green light from the French government."
We’re are ready to ship them all to Paris whenever we get the green light from the French government. https://t.co/nN54hHgEd9
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) June 29, 2025
El Salvador is proof that criminals must be punished. Borders must be closed for national security purposes to ensure we maintain our national identity. Immigrants should be warmly welcomed, but they must be thoroughly vetted. Riots can't be allowed to break out in the streets where people are injured and cities are vandalized. Visas can't be handed out like candy to people who want to come here and disrupt college campuses and call for violence and the support of terrorism.
If we don't turn things around soon, we'll be the ones looking to other countries as they build the kind of society we were dumb enough to throw away.
