Donald Trump has said he will pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of drug trafficking charges in a US court last year.
The US president said Hernández had been “treated very harshly and unfairly” in a social media post announcing the move on Friday.
Hernández was convicted in March 2024 of conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States and possession of machine guns. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison.
Trump also expressed his support for conservative presidential candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura in the Central American country’s general election, which will be held on Sunday.
Hernández, a member of the National Party who was president of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, was extradited to the United States in April 2022 to stand trial for leading a violent drug trafficking conspiracy and helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States.
He was found guilty by a New York jury two years later.
Polls indicate that the Honduran election remains a toss-up between three candidates, including Asfura, the former mayor of Tegucigalpa and leader of the conservative National Party.
Also in the race are Rixi Moncada, a former defense minister who represents the ruling leftist Free Party, and Salvador Nasralla, a television presenter for the centrist Liberal Party.
Trump criticized Moncada and Nasralla on Friday, writing that the latter was “a borderline communist” who was only running to split the vote between Moncada and Asfura.
He characterized Asfura as a “defender of democracy” and praised him for campaigning against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, with whom Trump has engaged in a war of words in recent months.
Nasralla has pledged to cut ties with Venezuela if he wins.
The Trump administration has accused the leftist Maduro – whose re-election last year was dismissed as illegitimate by many countries – of being the leader of a drug cartel.
He has used the fight against drug trafficking as justification for a military escalation in the Caribbean and has carried out attacks on vessels he claims have been used for smuggling, although some analysts have described these measures as a means to pressure Latin American leaders.
Honduras has been governed since 2022 by President Xiomara Castro, who has forged close ties with Cuba and Venezuela.
But Castro has maintained a cooperative relationship with the United States and has agreed to preserve a long-standing extradition treaty with that country. Your country also hosts a US military base dedicated to combating transnational organized crime in the region.
More than 80 people have been killed in US attacks on vessels suspected of being involved in narcotics transport since they began in August.
US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said the goal of “Operation Southern Spear” was to eliminate “narco-terrorists.”
But legal experts have questioned the legality of the attacks, noting that the United States has not provided any evidence that the ships it attacked were carrying drugs.
