US President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he will pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a US court last year on drug trafficking charges. In a Truth Social post, Trump congratulated Hernández, saying he was "treated very harshly and unfairly."

Hernández, a member of the National Party who served as Honduras's president from 2014 to 2022, was extradited to the United States in April 2022 to face charges of running a violent drug trafficking conspiracy and helping to traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine to the US. He was convicted by a New York jury in March 2024 of conspiring to import cocaine into the US and of possessing machine guns, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

In the same post, Trump expressed support for conservative candidate Tito Asfura in Honduras's upcoming general election on Sunday. He described Asfura as "standing up for democracy" and fighting against Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro. Trump also criticised Asfura’s rivals, writing that television host Salvador Nasralla is "a borderline Communist" who is running only to split the vote between Asfura and former defence minister Rixi Moncada of the ruling leftist LIBRE Party. Polls show the election remains a toss-up between the three candidates.

The Trump administration has accused Maduro whose re-election last year was widely dismissed as rigged of leading a drugs cartel. Trump also accused Maduro "and his narcoterrorists" of taking over Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Honduras, governed since 2022 by President Xiomara Castro of the LIBRE Party, has forged close ties with Cuba and Venezuela but maintained a cooperative relationship with the US, preserving a long-standing extradition treaty and hosting a US military base involved in targeting transnational organised crime. In August, the US launched a counternarcotics operation, "Operation Southern Spear," targeting boats allegedly transporting drugs from Venezuela to the US. More than 80 people have died in US strikes on suspected vessels, though legal experts have questioned the strikes' legality, noting that the US has provided no evidence the boats were carrying drugs.