The news that Donald Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), the former president of Honduras sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking conspiracy, is not surprising if one has knowledge of US geopolitics in Latin America.

What is striking is the starkness with which the web of interests linking the Republican Party, the Washington lobbying industry, and Honduran power circles is exposed, forming a system of mutual protection that disregards Honduran sovereignty and justice. The central connection passes through Marco Rubio, the current Secretary of State, and the firm BGR Group, which is adept at forging alliances between dictators, narco-politicians, and the Republican establishment .

Presidential pardon, the electoral machine, and Washington’s network of influence

This is the epilogue to a relationship built on a foundation of lobbying, money, and direct political interference. The Rubio-JOH connection was channeled through the influential firm BGR Group. Records from the Foreign Agents Registration Office (FARA) reveal that the Honduran government contracted BGR since at least 2018, paying sums exceeding $660,000 annually to improve its image in Washington.

BGR issued statements praising JOH as a “key ally in the fight against organized crime” and contacted 11 congressional aides, three of whom have direct ties to Marco Rubio. Rubio has benefited from BGR throughout his career, including fundraising events organized by the company during his 2010 and 2016 Senate campaigns, as well as during his brief presidential run.

The lobbying group, with deep roots in the Republican Party and linked to figures like Haley Barbour, actively worked to present JOH —even when the drug trafficking accusations were public— as an indispensable partner in security and immigration control.

The figure of Marco Rubio is the crucial political link; the now Secretary of State was, as a senator for Florida, one of the strongest defenders of the Honduran in the Capitol.

In September 2021, in a blatant display of political support, Rubio met with JOH in Tegucigalpa, praising their “alliance” on security matters. This meeting took place when JOH’s brother, Tony Hernández, had already been convicted of drug trafficking and evidence against the former president himself was mounting.

US interference in Honduras, however, is earlier and more profound. The 2009 coup against Manuel Zelaya, which paved the way for the return to power of the National Party of Honduras (PNH), was met with complicit silence and subsequent legitimization by Washington. This was the “down payment” of the loyalty demanded for Hernández, as president of Congress and later as president, to consolidate his position as the US’s preferred regional enforcer—a role his government paid dearly for in terms of internal repression and alignment in international forums.

Prior to the presidential elections of November 30, Trump explicitly conditioned his support on a victory for Nasry “Tito” Asfura, the National Party candidate and JOH’s political successor:

" Tito and I can work together to fight the narco-communists and provide the necessary aid to the Honduran people. I cannot collaborate with Moncada and the communists, and Nasralla is not a reliable ally for freedom, and he cannot be trusted."

This threat is reminiscent of tactics used in Argentina and other countries, and reveals that the pardon announcement was a tool of political pressure. Asfura, for his part, faces various accusations of alleged money laundering, embezzlement, fraud, use of false documents, and breach of duty.

On November 21, Carlos Trujillo, the former ambassador to the OAS under the Trump administration, testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere regarding electoral integrity in Honduras. The Cuban-American, a close associate of Rubio , reiterated that the ruling Liberty and Refoundation Party (Libre) was attempting to steal the November 30 presidential election, but failed to mention that his lobbying firm, Continental Strategy LLC, worked for approximately four institutions within the Honduran financial elite, including “Honduras Próspera,” a controversial private charter city in Honduras backed by Silicon Valley billionaires.

In total, these Honduran clients paid Trujillo’s firm at least $670,000 this year alone, and many of the entities he represents have a clear interest in overthrowing the Libre party in favor of a more pro-business government.

The pardon, therefore, is the ultimate bargaining chip. There have been reports of alleged multimillion-dollar payments channeled through lobbyists to secure the pardon, although these claims have not been proven in court.

However, the logic is that it is not innocence that is forgiven, but rather services rendered. The pardon is the ultimate tool of interference, sending a clear message to the region: loyalty to Washington is valued more highly than the rulings of its own courts.

Is the party of impunity returning to Honduras?

The rise and impunity of JOH are incomprehensible without analyzing the PNH as the machine that sustained him. Its candidate, Nasry Asfura, is the likely winner of the recent elections, which were marred by accusations of fraud.

The governments of that party were the ultimate expression of a plutocratic political project with a documented history of crimes and violations. After the 2009 coup, it rebuilt the state as spoils of war, and its trajectory is defined by three intertwined pillars:

• Systemic corruption. Scandals like the embezzlement of funds from the Honduran Social Security Institute (IHSS), where hundreds of millions of dollars were misappropriated , implicated the party leadership. The National Party (PNH) operated under a logic of “co-optative capture” of the state, where institutions existed for the private benefit of the network in power. Although it was portrayed as acts of corruption by individual officials, it was the modus operandi of the entire structure.

• Human rights violations. Repression was institutionalized, and the 2016 assassination of Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, for her opposition to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, is the emblematic case. The masterminds, linked to the business and political elite, initially enjoyed impunity under JOH’s government. The mass protests following JOH’s fraudulent reelection in 2017 were brutally repressed by security forces, leaving 32 dead, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Demonstrators were killed by security forces, and the National Police (PNH) resorted to the militarization of the National Police through the TIGRES unit, created by JOH and trained by the United States.

• Structural links to organized crime. The party provided the perfect political cover for drug trafficking infiltration. Devis Leonel Rivera, a DEA informant and leader of the Los Cachiros gang, recounted how he paid bribes to JOH in 2012 through his sister, Hilda Hernández. He also paid bribes to former Honduran President Porfirio Lobo—also of the PNH—who helped them by awarding government contracts to his company, “Inrimar,” in exchange for bribes.

Specifically, JOH’s sister, who served as Minister of Social Development, created 279 shell foundations, according to the Specialized Prosecutor’s Unit Against Corruption Networks (UFERCO). Between 2010 and 2014, she embezzled up to $360.6 million from the Departmental Development Fund, which was controlled by the Congress presided over by her brother.

The “Pandora’s Box” case, shelved in 2020 by the JOH government, documented how 12 million were diverted to shell NGOs that financed campaigns since 2013. The Mission to Support the Fight against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH) was never able to finish the investigation because, in 2020, Hernández did not renew its mandate and dismantled the only international body that investigated systemic corruption.

Narco-states are forged in the North

On March 8, 2024, a federal jury in New York found JOH guilty of conspiracy to import narcotics, use of firearms, and conspiracy to import weapons, sentencing him to 45 years in prison. Judge Kevin Castel was unequivocal: “The Hernández family turned Honduras into a narco-state using the structure of the National Party.”

Testimonies from drug traffickers like Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez revealed that JOH offered “protection from the Army and the Attorney General’s Office” in exchange for bribes to finance his campaigns. Court documents quote a phrase attributed to JOH: “I want to shove drugs up the gringos’ noses.”

Furthermore, it was proven that he received millions from the Sinaloa cartel, including direct payments from Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. During the trials, U.S. prosecutors described him as a “key co-conspirator” in a network that moved more than 400 tons of cocaine.

Despite this, senior officials such as Admiral Craig Faller, former head of Southern Command, publicly praised his “anti-drug cooperation,” and the Pentagon maintained operational ties with the Honduran armed forces under his command, despite their direct links to cartels.

Therefore, the hypocrisy reaches its climax with Trump’s pardon, who punishes small-time drug traffickers with lethal operations in the Caribbean, but pardons the one who transformed Honduras into a narco-state, according to the Justice Department itself.

The American magnate, now a self-proclaimed “statesman,” contrasts his rhetoric with his actions. He signed the order to deploy warships to the Caribbean to “combat drug trafficking” but has released a proven drug kingpin whose organization infiltrated the Honduran state. Rubio, who promotes sanctions against Venezuelan and Colombian officials for alleged drug trafficking, is the same individual who received contributions from BGR Group and praised JOH as a “guarantor of stability.”

This double standard has precedents. BGR Group signed a $2.15 million contract to defend Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the murder of Khashoggi, citing “strategic interests.”

The reality is more prosaic: the PNH, through BGR, bought access to the Republicans and the $660,000 annually invested in lobbying, from 2017 to 2021, generated multimillion-dollar returns in military aid and IMF disbursements that, according to the prosecution, JOH diverted to phantom foundations.

The pardon of JOH is a confirmation that Honduras will once again become a narco-state and a functional model for US foreign policy. The Honduran National Party (PNH), with over a century of history, has demonstrated that it can plunder a country, assassinate opponents, traffic tons of cocaine, and still remain an “ally.”

Trump’s “anti-drug” operation in the Caribbean is revealed as what it always was: a geopolitical theater that seeks regime change in Venezuela while the real operators of the narco-state pay their entrance fee to the club of the “unconditional” supporters.