Trump’s pardon of a convicted trafficker undermines the drug war narrative

Mexico City – Juan Orlando Hernandez, a convicted drug trafficker who prosecutors said paved the “highway for cocaine” to the United States, walked out of a West Virginia prison this week as a free man.

That was thanks to President Trump on Monday granting a full pardon to Hernandez, the former far-right Honduran leader who was sentenced to 45 years in prison for supporting what the US attorney general called “the largest and most violent drug-trafficking scheme in the world.”

Trump’s unusual apology has angered many in Latin America and raised critical questions about his escalating military campaign in the region, which the president insists is aimed at fighting the drug trade.

On Tuesday, Trump warned of “attacks on the ground” in Venezuela, whose leftist leader, Nicolás Maduro, has been described by the White House as a “drug dictator” who appears intent on forcing him from power.

“If Trump is a drug warrior, why did he pardon a convicted drug dealer?” Dana Frank, a professor emerita at UC Santa Cruz specializing in recent Honduran and Latin American history, said. She described the narrative of the drug war adopted by the White House as a way to press US economic and political interests in the region and “justify a hemispheric attack on governments that the US does not want to pursue.”

The U.S. has killed dozens of low-level drug traffickers in missile attacks on ships in the Caribbean and Pacific, and has pulled 15,000 troops and a fleet of warships and warplanes off the coast of Venezuela.

Venezuela, home to the world’s largest known oil reserves, has been controlled by Maduro’s leftist government since 2013.

The White House this year has blamed drug lord Maduro for leading the drug-trafficking network known as the Cartel de los Soules, which is made up of high-ranking Venezuelan military officials. Last month, the agency designated the Cartel de Los Soules as a foreign terrorist group.

But security experts in Venezuela and U.S. law enforcement officials say the Los Soules cartel, like Mexico’s, is not a well-organized drug-trafficking organization. They say it is also unclear whether Maduro is directing the illegal activities or whether he is simply looking the other way, perhaps to build loyalty, while his generals enrich themselves. Maduro says the accusations are false and that the US is trying to remove him from power to gain access to Venezuela’s oil.

The evidence against Hernandez, on the other hand, was more damning.

Hernandez was brought up in several drug-trafficking cases by US authorities, who accused him of transporting 400 tons of drugs through Honduras and accepting millions of dollars in bribes from Mexican cartel kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Prosecutors said Hernandez used his military to protect smugglers and once boasted that he would “put drugs up the gringo’s nose” by flooding the United States with cocaine.

Hernandez insisted that the case against him was politically motivated and that his 2024 conviction depended on the testimony of witnesses — largely drug traffickers — who were not credible. The Trump administration outlined those reasons this week when it explained the president’s pardon.

Hernandez’s wife, Ana García de Hernández, called the pardon an act of justice, writing on social media, “After nearly four years of pain, waiting and difficult trials, my husband Juan Orlando Hernández has returned as a free man thanks to a presidential pardon by President Donald Trump.”

The pardon appears to be related to the Trump administration’s efforts to influence the outcome of the recent Honduran presidential election.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, Trump threatened on social media to cut off aid to Honduras, which includes Hernandez, if voters do not choose conservative candidate Nasri “Tito” Esfora as the National Party candidate. Trump also criticized the current Honduran president, the leftist Xiamoura Castro.

Election results were still being counted on Tuesday, but Asfora appeared to face another conservative, Liberal Party candidate, Salvador Nasrallah. Castro was far behind.

Since returning to the White House this year, Trump has sought to reign in Latin America like few presidents in recent memory, cutting deals with right-wing leaders such as Argentina’s Javier Mili and El Salvador’s Nabi Buquel and imposing tariffs and punitive sanctions on left-wing governments.

Trump and his officials have tried hard to sway support for right-wing candidates in recent elections in Argentina and Peru.

“This is an abuse of the democratic process,” Frank said. “It’s heartbreaking for the sovereignty of these countries.”

At home, Trump has repeatedly interfered with the justice system with pardons.

His pardon for Hernandez comes amid a spate of presidential pardons, with pardons lawyer Ed Martin openly calling for a Justice Department investigation that would incriminate Trump’s political enemies in addition to leniency for his friends and allies. “No MAGA is left behind,” Martin wrote on social media in May.

Legal experts say the president’s pardons and commutations are aimed at individuals accused of abuse of power and white-collar crimes — the kinds of crimes Trump has been charged with throughout his adult life.

In just the past few weeks, the president has proposed changes to George Santos, a former congressman convicted of defrauding donors, and David Gentile, a private equity executive convicted of a $1.6 billion scheme that prosecutors say defrauded thousands of ordinary investors.

He also pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a crypto-finance executive with ties to the Trump family who pleaded guilty to money laundering, as well as Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive who pleaded guilty to tax crimes, only for his mother to seek immunity for him in the city of Maringen.

The pardons have divided Trump’s base of supporters, some of whom see the president as protecting conservative voices who have faced political trial under the Biden administration. Still others see Trump protecting wealthy allies as much of the country faces an affordability crisis.

Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Willner from Washington.