Scoop: El Salvador blasts U.S. State Dept. over Haiti gang war

State Department officials have quietly raised objections to El Salvador's gang-fighting efforts in Haiti — even as President Trump has offered his full support, according to diplomatic notes and informed sources. On Monday, El Salvador issued a formal rebuke that questioned the "credibility" of the top U.S. diplomat in Haiti. Why it matters: The controversy exposes the tension between Trump's MAGA foreign policy objectives and the professional diplomatic establishment in the State Department. "There is a class of bureaucrats who don't want to see the change in the Western Hemisphere that POTUS wants," a U.S. official told Axios. Zoom in: Haiti is a failed state racked by extreme corruption and gang violence despite years of international efforts, including the UN-backed Gang Suppression Force (GSF) that El Salvador and other nations have backed. Four Salvadoran aviation technicians supporting medical evacuations were captured Oct. 18 by gangs that refused to heed the entreaties of El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele to return the men or their bodies. Bukele responded by surging special forces units to Haiti after receiving the blessing of Trump, an ally, on Oct. 27, Axios first reported . "You have to do what you have to do," Trump told Bukele, who proceeded to launch military operations that resulted in firefights with gangs in the streets of Port-Au-Prince. Friction point: Tensions between State Department officials and El Salvador erupted after an Oct. 31 gang attack on a Salvadoran convoy of five armored personnel carriers near the U.S. embassy, which was struck by gunfire. On Nov. 3, Salvadoran attack helicopters repelled gangs attacking GSF soldiers from Chad, Bukele posted on X . The next day, U.S. Chargé d'Affaires David Howell complained in a text message to Haitian Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aimé that El Salvador wasn't "coordinating" with the GSF. "They took at least three casualties. They don't have a medical plan. They nearly killed GSF troops as