"Not one grain of rice" will be given to prisoners in the Terrorism Confinement Center, vowed El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, if innocent people are killed in the streets.

President Bukele has become a model for the right and a target for liberals and human-rights organizations because of his harsh crackdown on gangs, which is saving lives daily in El Salvador. By locking up 100,000 gang members, he has transformed El Salvador from one of the most dangerous countries in the world into one of the safest in the Americas.

In a press conference, Bukele addressed rumors that gangs were considering retaliating against ordinary citizens at random. He issued a direct warning. "There are rumors that they want to start taking revenge on the honest people, at random. Do that, and there won't be a single meal in prison."

He said that if gangs carried out such attacks, imprisoned members would face immediate consequences. "Let's see how long their homeboys last in there," he said. "I swear to God they won't eat a single grain of rice."

Bukele dismissed potential criticism from international organizations, saying he did not care what they might say in response to stricter prison measures. "Let them come and protect our people," he said. "Let them come and take their gang members, if they want them so much. We'll give them all to you, two for one."

Bukele has shown the world that crime can be stopped. Criminal gangs can be neutralized by locking them up. In a previous interview, he said the purpose of prison was not to punish, but simply to remove criminals from society so they could not hurt people anymore.

His plan not only worked in El Salvador, but could work anywhere. There just needs to be the political will.

In a separate press conference, he came down hard on Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum. Bukele argued that no government is incapable of eliminating crime if it truly exercises state power. "How is it possible that a criminal organization can control an entire territory and the government can't take it out?" he asked. In his view, the idea that a state cannot defeat crime is "absurd," because "Leviathan, the state, is always stronger than any criminal organization."

He said El Salvador had already demonstrated this principle. Critics often claim that drug trafficking alone explains the power of criminal groups, but Bukele rejected that argument as incomplete.

Pointing to Europe, he said he is "totally against drugs" and emphasized that El Salvador is fighting a drug war. Yet, he argued, drug consumption in Europe is "much higher, legal and illegal," than in Latin America. Despite that higher consumption, Europe does not have cartels controlling territory. There may be dealers, he acknowledged, but there are no drug cartels, "much less controlling territories."