Honduran snub highlights anti-U.S. swing in Latin America

Honduras is threatening to ditch a bilateral extradition treaty, furthering a sample of snubs delivered in opposition to the US by an array of Latin American leaders.

Anti-American rhetoric has been on the rise within the area, with presidents of companion international locations – not simply avowed U.S. rivals – casually leveling accusations of U.S.-led plots and coups.

Honduran President Xiomara Castro ordered her authorities to drop the U.S.-Honduras extradition treaty after U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu expressed concern over Honduran navy officers assembly with Venezuelan Protection Minister Vladimir Padrino, a distinguished member of President Nicolás Maduro’s internal circle.

“A plan is being hatched in opposition to my authorities and it’s vital that the folks know this,” stated Castro, according to Reuters.

“I will not enable the extradition instrument for use to intimidate or blackmail the Honduran Armed Forces. We’re defending our armed forces, not coups.”

Padrino is below indictment by the U.S. Division of Justice for allegedly operating a drug trafficking operation by means of Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

Castro’s saber rattling follows per week of heightened U.S.-Mexico tensions, with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declaring his relationship with the U.S. embassy on “pause” after Ambassador Ken Salazar stated a judicial reform proposal “represents a threat for the functioning of Mexico’s democracy, and the combination of the American, Mexican and Canadian economies.”

“I believe these persons are exhibiting their true colours. I believe it is about time the U.S. wakes up and realizes who their pals are, who aren’t their pals, who’s keen to work with them, who’s not keen to work with them,” stated Eddy Acevedo, chief of employees and senior adviser on the Wilson Middle.

Looking for distance from the US is ideologically constant for regional leaders like Castro, López Obrador and others like Colombian President Gustavo Petro, all of whom to some extent embrace the historic imaginative and prescient of the US as a post-colonial interventionist energy in Latin America.

However Castro’s motivations may very well be extra private than historic.

In 2009, Castro’s husband, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, was ousted as president of Honduras in a coup.

Whereas the Obama administration was crucial of the coup itself, the US rapidly moved to acknowledge a post-coup swift election that a lot of Latin America noticed as de facto assist for the coup.

Porfirio Lobo Sosa, the president who gained that election, and Juan Orlando Hernández, his successor, each have direct hyperlinks to the multinational drug commerce. Hernández is serving a 45-year sentence for drug trafficking in the US. Lobo’s son Fabio is serving a 24-year sentence, and Lobo himself had associated corruption prices dismissed in Honduras this yr, however has been below U.S. sanctions for his alleged corruption since 2021.

In 2022, the Biden administration hyped Castro’s election, sending Vice President Harris because the visitor of honor to her full-stadium inauguration.

However that doesn’t imply Zelaya let bygones be bygones.

“Mel Zelaya is seizing the second, pushed by alliances with [Nicaraguan President Daniel] Ortega and financial alternatives with Maduro and [El Salvadorean President Nayib] Bukele. With U.S. elections looming and migration dominating the agenda, he sees a gap to distance from the U.S. and align with Russia and China with out fearing robust U.S. retaliation,” stated Carl Meacham, a former Republican Senate International Relations Committee senior employees for Latin America

“Revenge was inevitable, because the U.S. deserted him after the coup. Now, together with his spouse in energy, they’re again with a vengeance, exposing the shortsightedness of U.S. coverage throughout the Lobo and Hernandez years.”

Castro threatened to drag the extradition treaty that will have introduced Padrino to justice in the US – satirically, the identical treaty that allowed the US to take custody of Hernández.

A State Division spokesperson advised The Hill the treaty stays in pressure.

“Extradition is a worthwhile regulation enforcement software that has benefitted each the folks of Honduras and the US.  We strongly urge the Authorities of Honduras to rethink this choice, as it’ll damage efforts by Honduras and the US to collectively struggle narcotrafficking and produce criminals to justice,” the spokesperson stated in an e mail.

However leaders like Castro and López Obrador are benefiting from yet one more tense election yr in the US, spouting anti-American rhetoric each to attain inner political factors, and enjoying into a bigger geopolitical push to weaken U.S. affect worldwide.

Castro’s first massive play on the worldwide scene was to acknowledge communist China in 2023, dropping a longstanding diplomatic relationship with Taiwan.

China’s curiosity in Latin America is multifaceted – political and safety pursuits are intertwined, if not secondary, to financial pursuits each in Latin America as a market and supplier of uncooked supplies, and as a gateway to the U.S. market.

However China is just not the one main energy seeking to Latin America, a area that’s hardly ever a excessive U.S. overseas coverage precedence below both Democratic or Republican administrations.

“Our future is tied to this area, and we’ve seen in recent times all these nefarious actors, the Russians, the Chinese language, the Iranians, gaining a foothold. And we’ve to have the ability to counter that,” stated Acevedo.

“From a Russian perspective, they see it as a really small funding that’s getting them a really massive return. Proper? As a result of additional instability within the Western Hemisphere solely impacts the U.S. extra. Additional migration out of Venezuela impacts the U.S. extra. The Kremlin and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s goal is to additional chaos, instability within the area and undermine U.S. pursuits,” he added.