Donald Trump has busied himself in Latin America this year. He tried and failed to use tariffs and sanctions to force Brazil to halt the trial of his ally, the right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro; he gave financial support to stabilise the Argentine peso and help President Javier Milei through his midterms; he blows up what his Pentagon says are drug-trafficking boats off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia; he threatens Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, with military force.
Mr Trump’s goals in all this are rarely clear, but his latest intervention, in tiny Honduras, sets a new bar for fogginess. On November 26th, four days before a three-way presidential election, Mr Trump endorsed Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the right-wing National Party candidate, saying they could work together to tackle “narcocommunists”. On November 28th he added that the election of anyone other than Mr Asfura would lead him to cut off American aid to Honduras. He then pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president from Mr Asfura’s party sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States in 2024 for conspiring with drug gangs. Mr Hernández was set free on December 2nd.
The impact on the race is unclear. Some Hondurans say they backed Mr Asfura in the hope that he could maintain good relations with the United States. Others say the release of Mr Hernández, who turned Honduras into a narco-state, convinced them not to vote for his party. Contrary to Mr Trump’s claims, most Hondurans did not want Mr Hernández freed.
Mr Asfura took a small, early lead, but as more votes were counted Salvador Nasralla, a former television host representing the centre-right Liberal Party, pulled ahead. Early on December 4th, as The Economist went to press and with 84% of the vote counted, Mr Trump’s man had closed the gap. The electoral commission has up to 30 days to certify the result.
Honduras’s mountainous terrain means tallying votes is slow. The preliminary result published on the night of the vote is based on counts from polling stations with internet connectivity and so is biased towards urban voters. Tally sheets and sealed ballot boxes from rural polling stations have been handed over to the armed forces, which have been bringing them to the National Electoral Council for processing. In close elections this creates delays and late swings, dangerous in a country with a long record of disputed elections. Mr Trump is making things much worse. As Mr Nasralla took the lead on December 2nd Mr Trump alleged fraud and warned of “hell to pay”.
Mr Trump’s support for Mr Asfura seems to stem from dislike of Honduras’s left wing under President Xiomara Castro of the Liberty and Refoundation (Libre) Party. Mr Trump may also loathe Mr Nasralla for running against the National Party on a joint ticket with Libre in 2021. Mr Trump has painted him and Rixi Moncada, the Libre candidate, as communists, despite the fact that Mr Nasralla has always been overtly pro-America.
The pardon seems to be rooted in a sense of shared victimhood. Mr Hernández has said he and Mr Trump were both targets of persecution by “radical leftist forces”. Never mind that the American investigation which put him behind bars happened during Mr Trump’s first term. Intense lobbying efforts, like those that led Mr Trump to assail Brazil with tariffs, played a role in his Honduran meddling.
The move undermines the coherence of Mr Trump’s war on drugs. Why threaten Mr Maduro, whose alleged ties with drug gangs are unproven, while freeing Mr Hernández, convicted in open court? The decision angered many. “Lunacy”, says an official at the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Mr Hernández is “right up there with the narco-bosses you’d see on Netflix’s Narcos”, says Enrique Roig, a former State Department official.
Amid Trumpian drama, the wants of 11m Hondurans have received little attention. Crime is rife. The economy is stagnant, corruption endemic. Mr Trump appears to care not a jot about any of that. ■
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