The US Should Ensure Freedom in Honduras

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Nov 29, 2025 - 10:53 Updated: Nov 28, 2025 - 23:17
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The US Should Ensure Freedom in Honduras

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Commentary
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The upcoming Honduran election is becoming a contest between freedom and a socialist government that is making too many wrong choices. The government has close relations with not only Venezuela, but also China, Cuba, Nicaragua, and, allegedly, drug traffickers.

The current president, Xiomara Castro, established formal ties with Beijing in 2023, and in the process jettisoned Honduras’ long-standing diplomatic support of Taiwan.

Press freedom is under attack in Honduras, and the pro-socialist military leadership wants a role in counting ballots. Personal freedoms are minimal, as the government suspended normal legal protections across most of the country in the name of fighting crime.

But, not surprisingly, drug cartels continue to corrupt Honduran officials to use the many air strips that dot the jungle. The narcos traffic cocaine and other illicit drugs north to the United States, where cocaine alone kills almost tens of thousands of U.S. citizens annually.

The electoral process in Honduras is marred with irregularities. During the last election, voters had to wait for long periods to receive their ballots. The military plans to ask for copies of the election tally sheets, which is beyond the scope of what the military should do. Castro supports this military role in elections.

Several nongovernmental organizations noted on Nov. 19, just 11 days prior to the election, that “Persistent institutional tensions, ongoing political polarization, and recent disputes over electoral regulations and the selection of electoral authorities risk undermining voter confidence.” That is an understatement.
The country is in an uproar over its failing freedoms and electoral processes. The NGOs have called on the United States to “help ensure the integrity” of the elections. The Inter American Press Association and other regional press organizations issued a joint statement expressing “deep alarm over the climate of harassment, stigmatization, and threats faced by journalists and media outlets in Honduras in the weeks leading up to the general elections on November 30.”

The statement warned of “recent attacks originating from high-ranking military authorities, combined with a trend of judicial harassment, digital surveillance, and administrative pressure, create a hostile environment incompatible with international standards of press freedom.”

House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee Chairwoman Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) said on Nov. 20 that Xiomara Castro “has been a loyal follower, in her own words, of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.” Her socialism pushed Honduras “into an economic abyss,” according to Salazar, who noted that the U.S. government has a responsibility “to ensure that in Honduras freedom and democracy will prevail.” Hear, hear.

Two opposition parties offer a ray of hope. They both said it is possible they could recognize Taiwan, for example, which shows that they are on the democratic side of geopolitics. But they are competing with each other in a close three-way race in which a simple majority of voters on Nov. 30 will decide the presidency. There are no run-offs, so if the two parties split the non-socialist vote, which they appear likely to do, the race will probably go to the socialist candidate.

The government alleges U.S. interference in the election, and plans by one of the opposition groups to “manipulate” results. This could be its way of preparing the terrain for a coup if the election does not go its way. The “justification” for such a coup would be the foreign and opposition manipulations that it warned about in advance. This makes claims of election fraud seem more real to naive voters and is just the sort of strategy that Venezuela could have advised.
Murder and violence from organized crime have decreased in Honduras during Xiomara Castro’s time in office, according to the government’s own statistics. But the statistics could be flawed, given that the government is likely to give itself good grades before an election. Its crime-fighting strategy has been widespread cancellation of personal liberties, mass incarceration, and expansion of the military’s role.

But public perception of the country’s security has not improved. Security experts in Honduras argue that the crime statistics are a result of shifting gang tactics rather than the eradication of the gangs themselves. As with many crime-fighting techniques, if you squeeze the water balloon in one place, it pops out somewhere else.

According to a recent report by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) monitoring and mapping organization, “armed violence linked to organized crime continued to thrive in Honduras’ rural departments, historically affected by a mix of land disputes and drug trafficking activities.”

Despite the many problems facing Honduras, the opposition made a strategic error in dividing themselves and the vote ahead of the presidential election. They ought to have combined forces to maximize their chances of delivering a resounding defeat to a socialist government that is far too friendly to adversarial countries like China and Venezuela. Nicaragua is already a police state aligned with China. The United States should not allow Honduras to go the same way.

The Trump administration is good at thinking outside the box. Now is the time for that type of creative approach to U.S. foreign policy in Honduras.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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