Juan Orlando Hernandez, member of Trump-endorsed candidate Nasry Asfura’s party, serving US drug trafficking sentence.

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump says he will pardon the former leader of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, just days before the Central American country’s closely contested presidential election.

The announcement on Friday came two days before Honduras’s vote, in which Trump has endorsed conservative National Party candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura.

Hernandez was the party’s last successful presidential candidate and had served as president from 2014 to 2022. Last year, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the US after being extradited from Honduras on charges of drug trafficking.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Hernandez has been “treated very harshly and unfairly”. He cited “many people that I greatly respect”.

Trump also again threw his support behind Asfura, who is facing four opponents in the scandal-plagued race. No clear frontrunner has yet emerged.

He added that a loss for Asfura would lead to a rupture in US support for the country of about 11 million, echoing a similar threat he made in support of Javier Milei before Argentina’s presidential election in October.

“If he doesn’t win, the United States will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country, no matter which country it is,” Trump wrote.

The US president and several right-wing figures have previously accused Rixi Moncada, the candidate for outgoing President Xiomara Castro’s left-leaning LIBRE party, as well as Salvador Nasralla, of the centre-right Liberal Party, of being in the pocket of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Both candidates have rejected the claims, which come as Trump has increased pressure against Maduro. That has included surging US military assets to the region and floating possible land operations.

Drug trafficking conviction

Despite Trump’s statements, the decision to pardon Hernandez sits uncomfortably with his administration’s pledges to target drug cartels and narcotic smuggling into the US.

That has included designating several cartels as “foreign terrorist organisations” and launching strikes on alleged drug smugglers in international waters. Rights groups have said the attacks are tantamount to extrajudicial killings and likely violate both domestic and international law.

During his trial, prosecutors accused Hernandez of working with powerful cartels to smuggle more than 400 tonnes of cocaine en route to the US. That included ties to the Mexico-based Sinaloa cartel, one of the criminal groups designated by the Trump administration as “terrorists”.

Hernandez allegedly relied on millions of dollars in cartel bribes to fuel his political rise.

At the time of his sentencing, former US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Hernandez used his presidency “to operate the country as a narco-state where violent drug traffickers were allowed to operate with virtual impunity, and the people of Honduras and the United States were forced to suffer the consequences.”