Juan Orlando Hernandez, a member of pro-Trump candidate Nasry Asfulura’s party, is serving a sentence for drug trafficking in the United States.
Published November 28, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that he will pardon former Honduran leader Juan Orlando Hernández, days before a closely contested presidential election in the Central American country.
Friday’s announcement came two days before Honduras’ vote, in which President Trump endorsed conservative National Party candidate Nasry “Tito” Asufura.
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Hernandez was the party’s last successful presidential candidate, serving as president from 2014 to 2022. Last year, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the United States after being extradited from Honduras on drug trafficking charges.
President Trump said in a post on Truth Social that Hernandez had been “treated very harshly and unfairly.” He cited “many people that I greatly respect.”
President Trump also reiterated his support for Asfura, who is facing four opponents in a scandal-plagued campaign. No clear front-runner has yet emerged.
He added that Mr. Asufura’s defeat would lead to a severing of U.S. support for the country of about 11 million people, repeating a similar threat he made when supporting Javier Millay ahead of Argentina’s presidential election in October.
President Trump wrote, “If he doesn’t win, America won’t be putting good money after bad, because the wrong leader can only have devastating consequences for any country, no matter what country it is.”
The U.S. president and several right-wing figures have previously accused Rixi Moncada, a candidate from outgoing President Xiomara Castro’s leftist Libre party, and Salvador Nasralla of the center-right Freedom Party, of being in the pockets of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Both candidates rejected the claims as President Trump ramps up pressure on President Maduro. This includes considering the possibility of a surge of U.S. military assets in the region and ground operations.
drug trafficking conviction
Despite President Trump’s statements, the decision to pardon Hernandez goes against the Trump administration’s commitment to target drug cartels and drug smuggling into the United States.
These include designating several cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations” and launching attacks on suspected drug smugglers in international waters. Human rights groups say the attack amounts to extrajudicial killing and is likely to violate both domestic and international law.
During the trial, prosecutors accused Hernandez of collaborating with a powerful cartel to smuggle more than 400 tons of cocaine en route to the United States. This included ties to the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel, one of the criminal organizations designated as “terrorist” by the Trump administration.
Hernandez is said to have relied on the cartel’s multi-million dollar bribes to further his political rise.
Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the time of the sentencing that Hernandez used his presidency to “run the country as a narcostate 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.”
