Honduras may appear as a small country in the Western Hemisphere, but the election on Nov. 30 carries outsize strategic weight. At stake is whether Honduras becomes a robust U.S. partner in hemispheric security and trade or drifts into strategic failure via external leverage and weak governance.
The main candidate associated with continuity of the current administration, Rixi Moncada (of the LIBRE party), is closely aligned with President Xiomara Castro and former president Manuel Zelaya. Her economic and political platform openly signals affinity with the socialist-governance models of countries such as Venezuela and Cuba, a fact that has raised questions about the direction of Honduras’s institutional and market orientation.
If she wins, Washington’s ability to base operations, gather intelligence, and disrupt trafficking networks via Honduras will face serious political and operational headwinds. The Trump administration needs an ally in the Presidential Palace in Honduras, not a continuation of the Zelaya family.
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Since Honduras severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Beijing has moved fast to anchor its influence. By 2024, Honduras and China inked a cooperation package worth about $275 million targeting educational infrastructure, while broader agreements seek to expand dams and power generation. A new “Economic and Technical Cooperation” accord pledges $100 million in non-reimbursable funds for joint projects across infrastructure, energy, telecoms, and human resources.
In the energy sector, Chinese firms are already active. Sinohydro built the 104 MW Patuca III dam in eastern Honduras (completed in December 2020) and delivered the 60 MW El Arenal dam by 2022. More ambitiously, Honduras’s current tender process for 975 MW of renewables and storage has drawn dozens of Chinese developer bids. Meanwhile, Chinese groups are circling energy-rescue efforts for the ailing state utility (ENEE) — the weak grid gives them leverage. This and other initiatives matter, not because China will dominate everything, but because each project creates long-duration dependence: engineering contracts, debt servicing, technical backdoors, and political leverage.
If infrastructure is the soil in which influence grows, logistics is the seed. Honduras’s geography, ports, and rail/road connectivity make it uniquely positioned in Central America. Its northern Atlantic port at Puerto Cortés is already the busiest container port in Central America and a key node for U.S. and regional trade. The Green Valley Industrial Park, about 90 minutes from Puerto Cortés, houses major maquiladoras and electronics/auto input manufacturers.
The real prize would be a reliable interoceanic rail or canal corridor: China has expressed serious interest in a $20 billion transoceanic rail project transiting Honduras. It’s marketed as a “national interest” project by the Castro government. If fully realized, that corridor would convert Honduras into a shipping jugular, moving goods, energy, container traffic, and strategic influence between the Atlantic and Pacific. A logistic axis like this could shift hemispheric trade and elevate Honduran geostrategic weight.
Under the Trump administration’s renewed focus, the U.S. is sharpening its counter-narcotics posture in Latin America. In October 2025, the Pentagon announced a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force under Southern Command aimed at protecting U.S. borders by crushing cartel networks in the Caribbean and Central America. Honduras is already a prime staging ground for interdiction efforts given its Atlantic coastline and proximity to Central America’s drug transit routes.
But basing operations, prepositioning logistics, conducting intelligence, and sustaining surveillance platforms all demand a partner government that is cooperative. A hostile administration, or one that views U.S. assets as political liabilities, could curtail overflight rights, restrict force posture, or condition access on political concessions. Honduras has already threatened to end military cooperation in response to U.S. deportation policies.
Honduras’s recent political history offers little reassurance that the vote will unfold cleanly. Past elections have been marred by irregularities, late-night “technical failures,” and partisan control of the Supreme Electoral Council. The 2017 vote, for instance, was widely criticized by the OAS for inconsistencies in tallying and reporting. Today, credible reports from civil society groups and international observers suggest the LIBRE party is preparing a multipronged strategy to retain power even if it loses the popular vote.
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For the United States and its partners, vigilance will be essential. The credibility of the vote will shape Honduras’s political trajectory for the next decade. A disputed or fraudulent election could rapidly turn the country into a governance vacuum, destabilizing trade corridors and providing new safe havens for transnational criminal networks.
On Nov. 30, Honduras faces a moment of truth. The electorate will either cement a path toward meaningful strategic alignment, one in which it anchors itself to hemispheric security architecture and resilient infrastructure, or it will gamble everything on a continuity candidate in Rixi Moncada. For the Trump administration and regional allies, the time to lean in is now —before the shells are cast, the rails laid, and the strategic switching costs locked in.
Nicholas Raineri is a former official at the Department of Defense and Office of the Director of National Intelligence who grew up in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.