Honduras President Accuses Trump of Manipulating Elections

By Staff, Agencies

Honduran President Xiomara Castro accused US President Donald Trump of direct interference in her country's presidential elections, condemning what she termed election manipulation in Honduras's disputed presidential race.

The November 30 presidential vote has been mired in repeated system failures delaying results. Trump-backed conservative Nasry Asfura leads with 40.53%, narrowly ahead of right-wing Salvador Nasralla at 39.16%, while Libre’s Rixi Moncada trails far behind, the National Electoral Council says.

Nasralla has rejected the results as fraudulent, insisting he leads by 20% and demanding a full recount. At a rally, Castro praised voters but alleged the election was tainted by threats, coercion, manipulation of the results system, and tampering with voter intent.

Castro specifically accused Trump of interference, noting his threats of consequences if Hondurans voted for Moncada. Trump openly endorsed Asfura as a "friend of freedom" while dismissing Nasralla as merely "pretending to be an anti-communist."

In a stunning move, Trump also pardoned former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45-year US prison sentence for facilitating the trafficking of hundreds of tons of cocaine.

Over a week after voting, thousands of irregular ballots remain under review. Libre demands the election be annulled and urges protests, while officials have until December 30 to declare a winner. The Trump administration says the vote was fair and rejects annulment.

Trump’s role in Honduras marks a major break from diplomatic norms. Days before the vote, he warned the US would cut off funding if Asfura lost, saying on Truth Social that Washington wouldn’t spend “good money after bad” if a candidate he called “communist” won.

The Trump administration used Cold War-style rhetoric, branding Moncada and Nasralla as “communists” tied to Venezuela’s Maduro. It also threatened mass deportations and blocking remittances, which make up about 25% of Honduras’ GDP.

Moncada noted that text messages were circulated warning voters that December remittances would not arrive if the wrong candidate won, creating panic in a population heavily dependent on these funds.

The impact was clear: pollster Ricardo Romero Gonzales said Nasralla had a nine-point lead before Trump’s endorsement, but the race tightened to a near tie afterward. With about one-third of Hondurans having family in the US, Trump’s threats carried significant weight.

Jose Ignacio Cerrato Lopez, 62, told the New York Times he planned to back Nasralla but switched to Asfura after Trump’s warning, saying he feared worsening US–Honduras relations.

Trump’s Honduras intervention, guided by his 2025 “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, aims to block China’s influence. After Honduras cut ties with Taiwan and embraced Chinese investment under Castro in 2023, Trump backed Asfura to halt these projects, viewing him as a “checkmate” to Beijing.

Trump’s interference continues a century of US meddling in Honduras, historically dominated by American fruit companies. In the 1980s, Honduras— “USS Honduras”—hosted a CIA-trained death squad during the proxy war against Nicaragua, and in 2009 the US tacitly supported the military ouster of pro-Chavez President Zelaya by allowing aid to continue.