In ending the Russia-Ukraine war, Trump could be preventing an El Salvador-like solution

Transitional justice tends to elude violent career criminals, including those who prolong cruel treatment.

Michelle Sheldone President Trump, by putting his foot down on Russia's peace treaty renege, can prevent problems like those that some illegal immigrants are experiencing.

Deporting evidenced Latin American gang members to El Salvador is considered transitional justice, a method that tends to elude those who commit violent crimes such as prolonged cruel treatment. Transitional justice involves punishing legacies of past human rights abuses, mass atrocities or other forms of severe social trauma with reparations, prosecutions, institutional reforms and the like.

Trump's actions toward this end prioritized his home turf and foreign gang members. Gangs, cartels and the mafia for the six years spanning 2015 and 2021 committed about as many homicides as soldiers on the battlefields of Russia-Ukraine, Israel-Gaza and more, according to the United Nations Global Study on Homicide. A No. 1 South Africa that is the birthplace of Elon Musk and a missing embargoed Cuba aside, countries most affected by gang violence are primarily clustered in Miami's backyard and boast the largest populations fleeing to America, according to a United Nations Global Study on Homicide.

For the six years spanning 2015 and 2021, a cluster of Latin America-Caribbean countries (and South Africa and Nigeria) contributed to a good portion to the majority of around 700,000 homicides, or an average of 100,000 or so per year.

Unlike Nordic countries that engage in benevolent acts and expect kindness from others, consistently landing at the top of an annual UN-University of Oxford-Gallup World Happiness Report happiness scale, entire areas in some of the leading Global Homicide countries "are beyond government control," an article in the Switzerland-based Fondation Hirondelle's media outlet contends. 

The homicide study's authors attribute the problem at least in part to social inequality, youth unemployment, competitions for control over illegal markets and inconsistent and unfairly applied laws that lead to corruption, inequality and a lack of accountability, ultimately hindering economic and social development.

Drugs and firearms also were to blame, they say.

In 2022, cocaine production reached a lifetime peak of 2,757 tons produced, a 20 per cent increase over the previous year that already represented a fairly giant leap over years prior to it, the UN reports. The increased production was accompanied by a surge of violence particularly in Ecuador and Caribbean supply chain countries, the UN claims.

The Justice Info article noted that mafias, gangs and cartels like those involved in violent crimes that include trafficking drugs and people tend to avoid transitional justice, or reparations, prosecutions, institutional reforms and the like, to address legacies of past human rights abuses, mass atrocities or other forms of severe social trauma.

The intent of transitional justice is to achieve a more democratic, just or peaceful future.

It's nevertheless important to achieve that future without the mounting "invisible wall" cost to the travel industry that advisories about unnecessary airport delays can cause.

It's important, too, that Trump's past business dealings with the mafia don't domestically bring about weak rule of law or a Kennedy-like assassination.

If they do, X Musk might have a VP waiting in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

• To view the Global Homicide Report: www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/global-study-on-homicide.html

• To view the World Happiness Report: worldhappiness.report/ed/2025/caring-and-sharing-global-analysis-of-happiness-and-kindness/