Trump Pardons Honduran Leader as Part of Larger Latin America Strategy

On November 28, 2025, President Trump announced he will grant a full and complete pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in U.S. federal court on drug-trafficking and firearms charges. He was sentenced to forty-five years in prison and has been portrayed by U.S. law-enforcement agencies as the central figure in what they described as a narco-state during his presidency. Hernández was extradited to the United States in 2022 and has been serving his sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Hazelton, West Virginia, while appealing his conviction. Trump’s intervention revived questions about Washington’s history with Honduras’s…