Honduras President threatens to expel US troops amidst Trump’s mass deportation threats

Honduras President Xiomara Castro warned that Honduras may stop US military operations in Honduras in a broadcast at the beginning of this year. The warnings come in retaliation to President Donald Trump’s repeated campaign promise to “launch the largest deportation program in American history.” According to Deputy Foreign Minister Tony Garcia, these deportation plans that target refugees and asylum seekers from Central America in the US could lead to the expulsion of up to 250,000 Hondurans this year. The threat of military explusion from Honduras, a country which hosts an important US military base, reflects growing tensions and marks a significant shift in the geopolitical norm of the United States’ domination in Central America. 

 

Castro, who became president in 2022 after running on a democratic socialist platform, stated in her televised New Year’s message, “In the face of a hostile attitude of mass expulsion of our brothers, we would have to consider a change in our cooperation policies with the United States, especially in the military field, where for decades, without paying a cent, they maintain military bases on our territory, which in this case would lose all reason to exist in Honduras.” Castro’s political opponents have been critical of this move. Jorge Cálix, a Liberal Party presidential candidate in Honduras’ upcoming Nov. 30 elections, said that Castro put Honduras “in grave danger” for personal and ideological reasons. Political analyst Olban Valladares criticized Castro as well, saying “She knows we don’t have the ability to threaten the United States in any way, that the damages it would cause Honduras would be terrible.” He also pointed out the potential of the threat to make Honduran migrants a target for the Trump Administration, according to the Associated Press. Brian Hughes, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team, responded in a statement saying, “The Trump administration looks forward to engaging our Latin American partners to ensure our southern border is secure and illegal immigrants can be returned to their country of origin.” According to the Associated Press, the Pentagon declined to comment, but noted that the issue was related to “pertains to campaign statements and not policy.”

 

Soto Cano Airbase became operational in 1983, and was used in the US-backed Contra War against Nicaragua to train anti-communist militias and to combat other perceived communist threats in the region during the Cold War. Today, it has more than 1,000 US military and civilian personnel and is used to deploy emergency aid as well as US forces and counter-narcotics responses. It also hosts the Joint Task Force Bravo, which the Department of Defense has described as a “temporary but indefinite” presence, and the United States does not pay Honduras for the base. Eric Olson, global fellow at the Wilson Center told Al Jazeera, “The US military presence in Honduras is generally popular, makes an economic contribution, and provides specific benefits to Honduras in terms of infrastructure development, intelligence, and emergency assistance in times of extreme weather which often impacts Honduras.” Analysts say that Castro’s threat is likely a negotiating tactic instead of a new policy, due to Honduras’ economic relationship with the United States. Remittances from its overseas citizens made up 27 percent of its GDP in 2022, over 500,000 of whom live in the United States, per Pew Research Center.Honduras, too, wouldn’t want a rupture in ties with the US, say analysts. Dana Frank, professor emerita of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, warned that Republicans such as Marco Rubio are likely to cast the current Honduras government within a broader “anti-communist Cold War framework.” Olson also warned that the Honduran government was “playing with fire,” telling Al Jazeera “I cannot imagine that President Trump will take kindly to threats to the US military by a government that Republicans already seem eager to categorise with Nicaragua and Venezuela.”

US military presence has a long history within Honduras, and Castro’s threat is also reflective of issues with the United States’ longstanding presence in the region more broadly. In 2009, Castro’s husband, former President Manuel Zelaya, was deposed in a coup by US trained officers and was brought to Soto Cano Airbase before being put onto a plane to Costa Rica. The United States recognized the new right-wing military government as legitimate and eventually increased financing to police and security forces, despite documented human rights abuses. The boldness of Castro’s response to Trump and reiteration of Central American sovereignty indicates a shift in Honduras-US ties. Frank told Al Jazeera, “I think this is a really fascinating and powerful turning point in the role of the US which takes for granted that it is going to dominate the Western Hemisphere, that it’s particularly going to dominate Central America.”

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