February 24, 2026
All sides of the same coin:
U.S. Election Intervention in Honduras, Military Attacks on Venezuela and Attempted Strangulation of Cuba
The election crisis in Honduras with all its consequences for the country and the region was still unfolding on January 3 when the U.S. military launched direct strikes against Caracas, Venezuela. The strikes reportedly had killed at least 80 people by that date and the U.S. sent in an “extraction force” to kidnap President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and deliver them to the United States to be indicted for narcotics trafficking. President Trump immediately claimed that the U.S. would be “running Venezuela” and “fixing the oil production problem”. He went on in the next 24 hours to issue a string of threats against the Venezuelan interim government led by Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba and Greenland. By February, the US had tightened the blockade of Cuba, deepening a humanitarian crisis on the island, stating its goal was to bring down the government, a thorn in the side of U.S. imperialism since its 1959 revolution and declaration of socialism.
It couldn’t be clearer that the U.S. intervention in Honduras' elections, escalation of military action against Venezuela, and attempt to strangle Cuba are, despite Trump’s frequent incoherence, very coherent steps in a strategic plan for the Western Hemisphere that was spelled out in the December 4th publication of the “National Security Strategy”. That plan includes the “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” and relies on destabilizing governments that show any independence from or opposition to U.S. goals. It means bringing back ultra-right governments allied with and subservient to the U.S. This plan is anchored in the historical reality of U.S. actions in Latin America but is aimed at establishing a new iron clad dominance against all rivals and challenges in the Western Hemisphere and using chaos to create stability for U.S. economic and political interests. “We’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors and rivals of the United States” claimed Marco Rubio on NBC on January 4th, 2026
It also is obvious that stopping drug trafficking into the United States is not the goal. In support of the right-wing National Party and its candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura the U.S. choice for president in Honduras, Trump issued a pardon for the former National Party narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH) who was convicted and sentenced in the U.S. for running a cartel during his regime that trafficked 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S.
Honduras Elections: The U.S. tests its power in Honduras.
U.S. interference on behalf of the Honduran right wing and both U.S. and Honduran elite and corporate interests has a long history. That history includes supporting the 2009 coup d'état and former President and drug trafficker JOH’s regime until he was pushed out in the 2021 election of the self-proclaimed democratic socialist government of Xiomara Castro. Immediately after the 2021elections, U.S. corporations and government began using traditional tactics of threats, public disapproval of policies, and free trade invest-state dispute (ISDS) claims as well as an unrelenting social media campaign to paint Castro’s party, the Liberty and Refoundational Party (LIBRE) as an extremist threat to prosperity, foreign investment,stability. After Trump's election in 2024, as Honduras moved into its 2025 election period and the elections became a test of U.S. power, the interference campaign intensified. At the end of November 2025 as Hondurans went to the polls, Trump publicly called for the election of Nasry “Tito” Asfura of the National Party and threatened to cut all aid if Hondurans did not vote for Asfura. Trump also went ahead and pardoned JOH, releasing him from a U.S. prison in the days following the 2025 elections.
Prior to Trump’s declarations, popular opinion placed two Presidential candidates, Rixi Moncada of the LIBRE party and Salvador Nasralla representing the Liberal party. On election day as votes came in in the midst of Trump’s public declarations and threats, results came in showing a statistical tie between the Liberal party and National party with LIBRE a distant 3rd. The Liberal Party candidate, Salvador Nasralla, a center-right ally of LIBRE, opposed the JOH pardon but tried to curry favor with Washington DC, promising to break relations with Venezuela and China if elected. However, Trump, the wealthy elite of Honduras including the traditional fractions inside the Liberal party, doubled down in support of Asfura.
In many races including the Presidency and the mayor election in Tegucigalpa, technical ties and legitimate concerns of fraud prolonged certainty about the electoral results in the month following the elections. In the hours and days immediately following election day, it became clear that any chance of fair and clean elections were undercut by manipulation of both the voters and the voting process. One example of this are mass anonymous text messages that were sent out threatening to cut off remittance payments from migrants in the U.S. to their families at home. There were discrepancies in ballot tallies, unscheduled computer system shutdowns, and violations of election regulations including the failure to verify the identity of registered voters at the polls with the provided biometric system. With Trump backing Asfura and little political will by the electoral representatives of the two traditional parties (National and Liberal parties) to verify vote-by-vote the electoral outcome, negotiations took place to determine the results of the elections. A month after the elections, when the National Electoral Council formally announced the electoral results including declaring Nasry “Tito” Asfura as the Presidential winner, approximately 11% of ballots were never reconciled and recounted despite several legal challenges requesting that this occur. The declaration of Asfura as winner was not only premature, it did not follow election protocols and there was obvious collusion of the National and Liberal Parties in refusing to recount. Despite all these flashing red lights and of no surprise to Hondurans, the election was rubber-stamped by the Organization of America States (OAS) that in the past like in 2017, certified Honduran election results despite widespread allegations of fraud. Nasry Asfura was sworn in as president on January 27, 2026. More details
What Happens Now?
Uncertainty and anxiety about what happens next in Honduras are palpable in the country. With sentenced drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernández free in the United States and still with tremendous power in the ruling National party, Honduras fear the return of the narco-dictatorship. The new government is already taking steps towards implementing a neoliberal offensive that will have serious consequences for the Honduran people. The consequences include rampant corruption and impunity, repression, privatization of the public institutions and goods, and an end to social programs aimed at assisting the poor. Following a similar pattern to the entrance of the Trump regime in the U.S., the Asfura government has already announced their intention to implement massive layoffs and closures of government agencies and immediately started introducing laws and taking actions to protect foreign and Honduran corporate interests. The HSN remains alert to and supports the demands and rights of the people and their social movements and we will continue to monitor and oppose interference by imperialism in Honduras and in Latin America and the Caribbean.
We will share more updates going forward.
The Honduras Solidarity Network - February 24, 2026
Honduras Elections 2025: Solidarity with the Honduran People
No to U.S. Threats and Interference
The Honduras Solidarity Network is supporting an electoral observation mission led by Global Exchange, a U.S. based organization together with our partner in Honduras, the Center for Democracy Studies (CESPAD). Follow our coverage from Honduras and be alert to actions supporting the Honduran people and their democracy.
Honduras Solidarity Network: honsolnetwork@gmail.com X hondurassol; Facebook
On November 30, 2025 Honduras will hold national elections in the midst of escalating U.S. interference in the region that includes military actions and threats of outright war against Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba from the Trump/Rubio administration. U.S. officials in the White House, State Department and Congress have been nurturing a propaganda campaign by the Honduran right wing press and organizations against the progressive forces in the country reminiscent of Cold War propaganda. This is layered onto the pre-existing challenges for democracy in a country that only four years ago electorally overturned 12 years of narco-dictatorship installed by a U.S. and Canada-supported coup and which has not yet been able to completely dismantle all the structures or policies of that regime.
The propaganda campaign has consistently opposed domestic reforms and international policies that do not line up completely with the U.S., incorrectly labeling the self-identified democratic socialist LIBRE party government as “communist.” This is the same inciting language used by the Honduran and U.S. political forces that undermined Honduran democracy and identified as pro-coup in 2009.
For example, Rep. Maria Elvira Salaazar (R-FL) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) have joined conservative Honduran media to consistently echo the interests of the wealthy Honduran families that dominate Honduras, often comparing the Castro government to Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Rep. Salazar also co-sponsored, with both Democrat and Republican congress members, the Protect Honduras Democracy Act (H.R. 4202). The bill calls for a clear interventionist position disguised with the language of supporting democracy. These calls for intervention were reiterated during the recent hearing by the U.S. House of Representative’s Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, where Rep. Salazar warned that the U.S. would not allow another country in the region to fall in the hands of socialism. She, too, defended the 2009 coup d’etat by calling on the Honduran military to intervene “once again to save its country from communism.” Now it has been announced that the very partisan Salazar will be heading up a delegation of congress members to observe the elections.
Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the upcoming elections that repeated threats from Christopher Landau, the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. State Department,that President Trump “will respond swiftly and decisively to anyone who undermines the integrity” of the elections.
Given the tense situation with U.S. warships in the Caribbean, this polarizing rhetoric is obviously aimed at inciting fears of Honduras suffering the same military attacks as Venezuela from the U.S. if the LIBRE party is elected. We do not see any of this as coincidental; it is part of a deliberate, broader campaign to undermine and manipulate voters and the electoral process.
Since at least March 2025, there have been other attempts to undermine the democratic process. The National Electoral Council (CNE), the electoral authority responsible for overseeing and managing the elections, is highly politicized and headed by three counselors, each representing one of the major political parties. Conflicts within the Council have caused concerns for the election. During the March 2025 primary elections, some polling stations in the two largest cities were left without any ballots, while others received the materials many hours late. There were accusations made that the military had not done its job of ensuring that election materials were delivered. There were also accusations that the CNE representative for the National Party, Cossette Lopez Osorio, contracted a private transportation company to deliver ballot boxes, but some deliveries were not made. The conservative pro-2009 coup press then used the crisis to undermine public confidence in the electoral infrastructure and institutions. These multi-faceted and sophisticated efforts continue today.
In late October 2025 information was released by the Attorney General on the existence of audio files of conversations between a major leader of the right wing National Party and current congressional representative Tomás Zambrano and the CNE National Party counsellor Cossette Lopez Osorio. The audio files describe strategies–some involving sectors of the military, the media, and the U.S. Embassy–to undermine ballot box transportation and to generate doubt about the electoral results. Zambrano and Lopez claim that the audio files are AI generated, but the discussed strategies are characteristic of the primary election scandal and past strategies being employed by the opposition.
What happens in Honduras is important to people in the United States as well as in the region. Across Latin America, the U.S. government historically works against governments that insist on their sovereignty, especially those that have reform-minded or radical programs for their own social-economic development often seen as threatening U.S. interests. This has escalated again in recent years with support for right-wing governments and parties (Honduras 2009 coup, Bukele in El Salvador, right-wing candidates in elections in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia). Now the Trump/Rubio administration is both blatantly interfering in elections and economic policy and is escalating to military action threatening Venezuela and Colombia murdering more than 83 people and threatening more violence.
An electoral crisis and instability in Honduras would increase the refugee crisis of Hondurans desperately seeking safety in the U.S. as it would deepen the economic and social crises in Honduras and likely lead to more political violence.
For people in the U.S., the threats of war and political interference by Trump’s government in Latin America and in the Honduran elections also raise the specter of more militarization and political repression inside the U.S. from an administration that has already carried out armed military-style actions in major U.S. cities.
November 21, 2025
The Honduras Solidarity Network is supporting an electoral observation mission led by Global Exchange, a U.S. based organization together with our partner in Honduras, the Center for Democracy Studies (CESPAD). Follow our coverage from Honduras and be alert to actions supporting the Honduran people and their democracy.
Honduras Solidarity Network: X hondurassol; Facebook
More election info: Honduras Now; Global Exchange