El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele received the first harvest last weekend from his country’s novel cash crop: criminals. Planes flying south from the United States carrying 261 criminal illegal aliens deported by the Trump administration landed in the country to discharge their cargoes into El Salvador’s famous high-security prisons, which were constructed by Bukele to house the thousands of gang members captured during the president’s tenure in office.

El Salvador’s offer to open its prison system to American inmates is an unusual one; generally, criminals are not an import of choice. Bukele, however, is an enterprising businessman as well as a capable politician, and he sees his country’s prison system as an asset that can be profitably leveraged.

The deal runs thus: The U.S. deports criminal illegal aliens to be incarcerated in El Salvador’s Terrorism Containment Center megaprison (also known as CECOT)—in this case, gang members from El Salvador’s own MS-13 as well as those from the dangerous Venezuelan group Tren de Aragua. In return, the U.S. government pays El Salvador $20,000 a year per inmate to house, feed, and most importantly guard them. This is about half the cost that would be expended were the inmates enrolled in the federal system of penitentiaries here in the U.S., a massive savings for the U.S. government. At the same time, with a GDP per capita of less than $6,000, this far exceeds the costs per prisoner expended by El Salvador’s prison system, allowing Bukele to turn a tidy profit on the operation.

This first batch of deportees alone will bring in well over $5 million dollars a year for El Salvador, a sum that Bukele is hoping will increase significantly—and well he might, as El Salvador’s prison system is a serious expense for the country, which is both small and far from wealthy. Currently, the government spends over $200 million annually to maintain CECOT and the rest of El Salvador’s penitentiaries, over 3 percent of the national budget. The addition of American prisoners, and the American dollars that come with them, serve as a way to subsidize the prison system and reduce its significant drain on the country’s resources, freeing up more of the budget for investment and development. The money does also enter the national economy via the salaries of prison guards and administrators and the purchase of food and other supplies for the inmates.

But to Bukele, the benefits of offering his country as an extension to the American prison system go beyond the purely monetary. They also serve as an effective way to curry favor with the Trump administration. Influence in Washington is a powerful currency, particularly in Latin America, and there are few countries that can reliably claim to possess it—none of them as small and economically insignificant as El Salvador. But Bukele, who already has amassed something of a following on the American right with his successful crackdown on crime, provides a unique value proposition: direct assistance with Trump’s own crackdown on illegal immigration and crime.

The potential benefits for Bukele are quite significant. Not only can he turn his prison system from a drain on the national budget into a profitable state enterprise, he may also be able to leverage his influence to increase security cooperation with the U.S., which now has a vested interest in maintaining El Salvador’s stability and political integrity—something he may well need in the future. Latin American countries are notoriously difficult to keep safe and free over the long term (see for example the tragic collapse of Ecuador). American involvement in the country is likely to bring with it an increase in private investment, taking advantage of the low cost of labor and living in the only recently pacified country. If the bet pays off, it may well lead to a safer and more prosperous El Salvador. Bukele stands to reap the political benefits.

It takes no small amount of vision to obtain such results with only a prison system to work with.

Of course, there are risks involved, as with any contract. Lawsuits against Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act might end the pipeline of American prisoners headed southwards. Alternatively, Trump—always something of an unpredictable actor—might decide that Bukele as a public figure is more of a nuisance than an ally (he has already criticized the president in the past). Or, worst of all, the addition of dangerous and capable criminals from the U.S. might destabilize the country’s much-vaunted prison system, something that would probably signal the end of Bukele’s power in the country.

Bukele, however, has proven to be a highly effective executive, and is obviously confident in the law enforcement and prison system he has built in the country. By all appearances, he is going to achieve the unusual feat of making prison pay.