The US president praised his new “friend” and praised the strong security ties between the US and Honduras.
Published February 8, 2026
President Donald Trump met in Florida with Honduran President Nasry Asufura, who praised the growing alliance aimed at curbing drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
President Trump said he met with his “friend” Asfura, a conservative businessman, at the Mar-a-Lago resort on Saturday. Mr Asufura took office last week after winning a narrow election.
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“Tito and I share many of the same America First values,” Trump said, using Asufura’s nickname. Trump strongly supported Asufura during the campaign, even threatening to cut off aid to Honduras if he lost.
“I gave him a strong endorsement and he won the election!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
After the meeting, President Trump praised the close security partnership between the United States and Honduras, saying they would work together to “counter dangerous cartels and drug traffickers and deport illegal immigrants and gang members from the United States.”
According to Honduras’ El Heraldo newspaper, Asfulura will brief Honduran media about Sunday’s meeting, giving “details about the issues discussed, the tone of the conversation and the possible outcomes of the dialogue.”
The meeting between the Honduran president and President Trump comes less than a month after the two countries spoke with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on January 12, when they announced plans for a free trade agreement.
Mr. Asufura’s rise to power gives Mr. Trump new conservative allies in Latin America, following recent changes in electoral systems that have replaced leftist governments in Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and other countries.
Just before the Honduras elections, President Trump pardoned former President Juan Orlando Hernández, a member of the Asufura party who was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for drug trafficking.
Al Jazeera’s Phil Lovell said in an interview from Palm Beach, Florida, that the pardon was “widely seen as a show of solidarity with the new president’s (Asufura) party.”
The decision sparked a huge backlash, especially as the Trump administration invoked the fight against drug trafficking to justify aggressive actions abroad. These include a series of bombings of suspected drug ships in the Caribbean and the subsequent abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is currently facing charges related to drug trafficking in the United States.
