Also: Why Javier Milei is in serious trouble
May 11th 2026 For subscribers
El Boletín
The best of _The Economist_ ’s Latin American coverage
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Honduras-gate, explained
Sarah Birke
Mexico City bureau chief
When in December President Donald Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras, from a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking, it raised eyebrows. Was this not the same Mr Trump who had pledged to crack down on illegal drugs in the western hemisphere; who on his first day in office had designated several drug gangs as foreign terrorist organisations; and who, just three months earlier, had begun striking suspected narco-trafficking boats in the Caribbean? Inconsistency is not unusual for Mr Trump. Even so, the decision seemed inexplicable.
On April 30th Canal Red, a Spanish left-wing broadcaster, purported to explain it. In a series of leaked audio recordings, of unclear origin and unverified authenticity, a voice said to be Mr Hernández’s describes an extraordinary arrangement: foreign backing for his release and political return, with support allegedly extending to allies of Mr Trump and beyond. Israel, according to the alleged conversations, helped finance and broker his release; Trump allies would smooth the political path. In return, Honduras would allegedly expand its special economic zones, host a new American military base, and pass laws favourable to American and Israeli corporate interests—in effect, becoming a strategic hub for American influence in the region.
The story does not stop in Honduras, but appears to detail a broader attempt to exert influence across the region: a disinformation campaign targeting the leftist governments of Mexico and Colombia, funded in part by President Javier Milei, a right-wing ally of Mr Trump in Argentina. At the same time, the recordings purportedly show efforts within Honduras to remove inconvenient officials, buy congressional votes and consolidate control over electoral institutions ahead of Mr Hernández’s possible political comeback.
Many questions remain unanswered. Mr Hernández has denied the authenticity of the recordings. Neither Mr Trump nor the Israeli government have publicly responded to the allegations. Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, acknowledged the report, but suggested any smear campaign wouldn't affect her government due to its closeness to the public. Colombia’s Gustavo Petro went further, publicly invoking the leaks as evidence of a broader effort to undermine progressive governments in the region. Others have been more circumspect, noting that the recordings’ provenance remains unclear and that no independent verification has yet been made public.
What impact does this have? If the audio leaks are genuine, they would point to an unusually brazen attempt to manipulate a small but strategically located country for political and business interests—a stark warning not just for Honduras, but for the region more broadly.
Yet even if audio is not legitimate, the episode is revealing. The claims have travelled quickly because they feel plausible. Mr Trump has shown a willingness to use whatever tools are at hand to bolster his allies (as on Honduras’s election night when he alleged fraud when his favoured candidate was trailing in the initial vote count) and to attack his opponents in the region—Mr Petro has been a frequent target of his rhetoric. The Israel angle, too, does not come from nowhere. Mr Hernández has long cultivated close ties with the country: in the early 1990s he attended a foreign-ministry training course there, and as a politician has repeatedly courted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, visiting Israel several times and moved Honduras’s embassy to Jerusalem.
All of this speaks, too, to the fragility of democratic institutions in parts of Central America, where power can be co-opted, subverted or hollowed out with relative ease. Depressingly, whether true or not, the allegations reflect a political environment in which the boundary between conspiracy and reality is thin.
Thank you for your letters about Rio de Janeiro, following Ana Lanke’s recent newsletter on how the city serves as a beautiful warning to the rest of Brazil. Ivan , who is based in Boston, said he was reminded of the Brazilian saying that “God created the world in six days, and on the seventh, created Rio”. Jethro describes the city as “a kind of paradise”. Meanwhile Vincent , who moved to Rio earlier this year, said the divide between favelas and affluent neighbourhoods is “surprisingly porous”.
This week, please write to us with your thoughts on Honduras-gate. What do you think about the revelations? Write to us at elboletin@economist.com.
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