President Nayib Bukele said he would free the Venezuelans that the Trump administration deported to El Salvador if Venezuela releases the same number of prisoners, including members of the opposition.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday offered Venezuela a prisoner exchange, proposing to trade detained Venezuelan deportees from the US for what he called Venezuela’s "political prisoners."

Bukele, the authoritarian leader of El Salvador, has agreed to hold deportees from the US in a notorious maximum-security prison known as CECOT in exchange for a fee. The Trump administration has claimed the Venezuelan migrants belong to criminal gangs including Tren de Aragua, which Washington designates a “terrorist organisation”.