Trump, Bukele Sidestep Bitcoin in White House Meeting

On that day — April 14, 2020 — El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele was in Washington, DC, visiting then-President Donald Trump at the White House. While they stuck to trade and immigration topics, Bitcoin policy discussions unfortunately became an afterthought. This meeting coincides with the fact that both countries are dealing with an increasingly hostile relationship with the crypto unicorn. El Salvador, which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender in 2021, is now unwinding its Bitcoin initiatives as part of a $1.4 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) signed in December. While over in the US, Trump has declared his intention to establish a Bitcoin strategic reserve.

Yet El Salvador’s novel Bitcoin strategic reserve model came under fire. Yet the nation was still under the gun to fulfill the conditions of its IMF loan. In January, the country’s Congress passed legislation to bring its Bitcoin laws into conformity with the agreement. This amendment represents a significant departure from their original support of the cryptocurrency.

The United States now holds a huge trove of Bitcoin—nearly 198,000 BTC. As of March, this extraordinary sum is worth more than $17 billion. This reserve mostly stems from seizures related to criminal and civil asset forfeiture cases. Interestingly, this does include a lot of the money that’s been recouped from the Silk Road and Bitfinex hack events. According to the US National Bitcoin Office’s BTC tracker, it currently holds 6,147.18 BTC ($520.7 million). Last Tuesday, March 6th, Trump made his move by signing an executive order. This order created the United States' first Bitcoin strategic reserve and a United States digital asset stockpile.

Though much of the meeting focused on trade and immigration, Bitcoin was not high on the public agenda that day. Staying on the economic theme, Trump hammered the American auto industry and the folly of moving production overseas.

"I’m looking at something to help some of the car companies with it." - Donald Trump

He suggested a potential temporary exemption for automakers to ease the transition of their supply chains, acknowledging that "the US auto industry needs a little bit of time to relocate production to the country."

Bukele's focus extended beyond the meeting, hinting at future collaborations.