Last Friday, Donald Trump promised in a message on his social network, Truth, to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, sentenced in the United States to 45 years in prison for his ties to drug trafficking. This Monday, one day after the elections that took place in the Central American country, in which Trump tried to influence in favor of his conservative candidate, Tito Asfora, Hernandez was released from prison, according to the registry of penal institutions. His wife, Ana Garcia, confirmed this on her social networks.
“I will grant a full and complete pardon to former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who, according to many people I deeply respect, was treated extremely harshly and unfairly,” Trump wrote Thursday. “This cannot be allowed, especially now, when Honduras, after the electoral victory of Tito Asfora, is heading towards great political and financial success.”
Asfoura was running for the same political party to which Hernandez belongs to remove the leftist government from power. On the second day after the polls closed, it is still unclear who won: the two right-wing candidates, Asfoura and the liberal Salvador Nasrallah, who did not hesitate to declare himself the winner on social networks. The victory was determined by a recount of the votes.
Hernandez, known as JOH, was president of Honduras between 2014 and 2022 for the conservative National Party. There have been years of cooperation with the United States in combating drug trafficking. Or at least, they seemed to be. In 2024, he was sentenced in Manhattan to 45 years in prison for more than a decade of association with drug traffickers who paid him bribes to ensure more than 400 tons of cocaine reached the United States. Three years ago, his brother Juan Antonio Hernandez was sentenced to life imprisonment for the same crimes. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office accused JOH of receiving $1 million from Mexican King Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.
During the trial, evidence was presented such as a conversation in which Goh bragged about his lucrative crimes: “(We’ll) shove drugs into gringo faces.”
Criticism of double standards
The pardon has drawn criticism in Washington, due to the apparent contradiction of the White House’s decision, which has been extrajudicially killing suspected drug traffickers for three months in the international waters of the Caribbean, while deploying a massive and unprecedented military operation, with more than a dozen warships, aircraft carriers, submarines and about 15,000 soldiers stationed in the region. The stated goal is to combat Venezuelan drug cartels, although few interpret the impending offensive against Chavismo as anything other than an attempt to force regime change in Caracas.
“The people of Honduras really believe they set him up (with the JOH trial) and that’s terrible. He’s basically been found guilty of being the president of his country… I’ve analyzed the facts and I agree (with those who believe in his innocence),” Trump told the press on Sunday.
Trump’s interference in last Sunday’s elections in Honduras did not stop when he took office on Friday. He wrote in another message: “Yes, Tito If Asfoura wins, the United States will give him great support, because it has great confidence in him, his policies, and what he will do for the great Honduran people. If he does not win, the United States will not waste its money, because the wrong leader can only bring disastrous consequences for any country, no matter what it is.
This was the second message of support he addressed to Asfoura in just 48 hours, as part of a persistence strategy reminiscent of his efforts, which were apparently successful, to influence the results of the recent Argentine legislative elections, in which he supported another ally, the hardline liberal Javier Miley. In a mail The previous Wednesday, Trump insisted that the only candidate who could work with him to combat “drug trafficking” was Asfora — a construction tycoon like Trump himself and a former mayor of Tegucigalpa.
As for the President of the United States, the other two candidates who have options are “communists,” even though they are not. They are Nasrallah, the leftist Free Party candidate, and former Defense Minister Rexy Moncada.
On Monday, in fact, Trump again interfered in the Honduran elections. He did so with a letter sowing doubts about the count. Contrary to his government’s official position, which asked for patience, he wrote that the Central American country was “trying to change the results of its presidential election.” “If they do, it will be hell!” He insisted.