Why is Honduras threatening to pull out US troops? | Military news

Honduras has threatened to expel US troops, retaliating against incoming President Donald Trump’s plans to do so. mass deportations of refugees and asylum seekers entering the United States from Central America.

Trump’s plan could affect hundreds of thousands of people from Honduras, a country that hosts a significant US military base.

Here’s what’s at the heart of the dispute between the world’s biggest superpower and its smallest neighbor, why it matters and what it means for ties between the countries.

What did Honduras say about US troops?

In her New Year’s message, Honduran President Xiomara Castro threatened to reconsider the country’s military cooperation with the United States if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Castro stated that US military installations in Honduras, particularly the Soto Cano airbase, would “lose all reason to exist” if these deportations took place. But he also used the opportunity to criticize the long-standing US military presence on Honduran soil more broadly.

“In the face of a hostile attitude of mass expulsion of our brothers, we must 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 will lose all reasons to be in Honduras,” he said in a Spanish statement broadcast on national television.

How important are US military bases in Honduras?

The US military presence in Honduras, while focused on the Soto Cano Air Base, is part of broader operations in Central America that include smaller bases in El Salvador.

Soto Cano, which became operational in the 1980s to combat perceived communist threats in the region, is home to more than 1,000 US military and civilians. It is also one of the few places capable of landing large aircraft between the United States and Colombia, outside of Guantanamo.

The base serves as a key launch point for the rapid deployment of US forces in the region, including to provide disaster relief and aid administration, and for counter-narcotics operations .

Its location provides proximity to drug trafficking corridors in Central and South America, making it also an essential ground for surveillance and interdiction.

However, some experts criticized the justification of the United States for its military presence in Soto Cano after Washington supported the government of Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was eventually extradited to the United States in 2022 for drug crimes and money laundering. money

Hernandez was twice president of Honduras and is serving a 45-year prison sentence in New York from June 2024.

“The hypocrisy of saying that they used him (Soto Cano) to fight drug trafficking when the United States was strengthening, legitimizing and pouring millions of dollars into the president of Honduras and his corrupt police and military”, Dana Frank, professor emeritus. of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Al Jazeera.

At the same time, while the United States does not pay Honduras for the base, Soto Cano also serves benefits to the Central American nation.

“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,” said Eric Olson, global partner. at the Wilson Center.

How significant is the threat – and why is Honduras doing it?

Experts say the Honduras threat marks a significant moment in Central American geopolitics.

“I think this is a really fascinating and powerful turning point in the role of the United States taking for granted that it will dominate the Western Hemisphere, that it will dominate Central America in particular,” Frank said.

Frank said the US military may be particularly inclined to keep Soto Cano amid competition with China, which has no military presence in Central America.

Honduras, too, did not want a break in ties with the United States, analysts say. The country relies on remittances from its overseas citizens: 27 percent of its gross domestic product came from remittances in 2022. And its largest diaspora is in the United States, where about 5 per hundred of the Honduran population – more than 500,000 people – live, according to Pew. Research Center Estimates.

Hondurans play a key role in the US economy, particularly in labor-intensive sectors. In the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March 2024, one of the six construction workers killed was a Honduran citizen, while the others were immigrants from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador.

This same dynamic, however, makes it difficult for Honduras to remain silent in the face of threats of mass deportations. The country’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Tony Garcia, said about 250,000 Hondurans could be expelled from the United States in 2025, a number the Central American nation is not equipped to accommodate immediately.

Without the remittances from its citizens in the United States, the Honduran economy could still take a big hit.

How likely is Honduras to follow?

Some analysts see the threat as a negotiating tactic rather than an immediate policy change, and say Honduras lacks leverage to influence US policy significantly.

“Ultimately, I feel that Honduras is making threats with a very weak hand,” Olson told Al Jazeera.

Frank described the move as a “preemptive strike” against Trump and a significant assertion of Honduran and Central American sovereignty.

Trump has promised swift deportation of undocumented immigrants, but his team has not provided concrete plans, leaving Latin American governments uncertain as they try to prepare.

He also promised to slap a 25 percent fee on Mexico and Canada if it did not stop the flow of migrants and fentanyl to the United States.

How might the US respond – and what does this mean for bilateral ties?

Olson told Al Jazeera that the threat could have broader implications for US-Honduras relations, particularly under a Republican-led administration. The Honduran government, he said, was “playing with fire.”

“I can’t imagine that President Trump will take kindly to threats to the US military from a government that Republicans already seem eager to categorize with Nicaragua and Venezuela,” he said, predicting that bilateral relations could ” take the brunt.” “, regardless of the result surrounding Soto Cano.

Olson said that for the United States, a potential breakdown in military relations with Honduras could be seen as disappointing but not critical to its military operations.

To be sure, Soto Cano played a key role in the 1980s in the US-backed Contra War against Nicaragua and the operations supported in El Salvador.

“It’s a long and ugly history,” Frank said, including its use during the 2009 military coup in Honduras, when it removed President Manuel Zelaya’s plane being refueled there.

But Olson suggested that the Soto Cano air base no longer has the strategic importance it did during the 1980s and 1990s.

“The US military has been considering its withdrawal from Soto Cano for some time,” Olson said, adding that missions such as counter-narcotics and emergency response could be carried out elsewhere.

Frank also warned that Republicans, including Marco Rubio, are likely to incriminate the government of President Castro as aligned with anti-US governments such as those of Venezuela and Nicaragua.

“This will probably be turned into a broader anti-communist Cold War framework,” he said.