{"id":9271,"date":"2025-02-18T08:55:28","date_gmt":"2025-02-18T13:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=9271"},"modified":"2025-02-20T08:58:53","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T13:58:53","slug":"honduran-president-changes-course-on-vow-to-end-extradition-treaty-with-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/?p=9271","title":{"rendered":"Honduran President Changes Course on Vow to End Extradition Treaty with U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"
Honduras\u2019 President Xiomara Castro waves during the swearing-in ceremony for Colombia\u2019s President Gustavo Petro in Bogota, Colombia, Aug. 7, 2022. (AP Photo\/Fernando Vergara, File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 Honduran President Xiomara Castro<\/a><\/span> on Tuesday reversed course on a decision to end a long-running extradition treaty with the United States after reaching an agreement with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n

The reversal came as the Trump administration has struck agreements with a number of Central American nations to receive deported migrants from other nations, often after pressure was applied or offers of support made on other issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI announce that I have reached an agreement with the new American administration so that the extradition treaty will continue with the necessary safeguards for the state of Honduras,\u201d Castro wrote in a post on X.<\/p>\n

Honduras was not a stop on U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s recent Central American tour and while Honduras has continued to receive its own deportees, neither Honduras nor the U.S. have said there is a deal for Honduras to also receive migrants from other nations.<\/p>\n

In February, Mexico started sending 10,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico<\/a><\/span> border to postpone threatened 25% tariffs. Last month, Colombia\u2019s firebrand leftist leader caved in a showdown after Trump threatened steep tariffs and sanctions after the Colombian government said it wouldn\u2019t take deportation flights in U.S. military aircraft.<\/p>\n

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On Tuesday, Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina said the extradition treaty was part of direct talks with the White House, in which the governments discussed five key issues: migration, military agreements, free trade agreements, investment in trade infrastructure in Honduras and extradition.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t immediately clear what, if anything, Honduras would get from the agreement.<\/p>\n

Reina added that the extradition treaty would include \u201cimportant, normal safeguards,\u201d namely that cases of extradition would not be politicized in any way and based on legal factors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s a change of tone from Castro\u2019s administration. In August, Castro said that she would end the treaty after the U.S. ambassador in Honduras questioned a visit of Honduran military officials to Venezuela to meet with officials accused by the State Department of drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

The comments by the diplomat stroked anger in the Honduran government, which decided to end the treaty. The treaty has seen high-profile crime suspects including Castro\u2019s predecessor former President Juan Orlando Hern\u00e1ndez extradited to the U.S. He\u2019s serving a 45-year prison sentence in the U.S. for drug trafficking.<\/p>\n

Days after Castro announced she was canceling the treaty, her brother-in-law Carlos Zelaya, brother of former President Manuel Zelaya, appeared in a video in which he is seen with several well-known drug traffickers negotiating a bribe. The video fueled anger in many Hondurans<\/a><\/span>, who said that her real reason to end the treaty was to protect her family.<\/p>\n

Reina said Tuesday the latest decision was important to ensure the democratic integrity of the country\u2019s upcoming elections, a process in which the Honduran military is a guarantor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not here to favor politicians or criminals, but, if in any way, the extradition treaty is used to destabilize the government or elections through an attack on the armed forces, that does concern us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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– Marlon Gonz\u00e1lez, AP News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 Honduran President Xiomara Castro on Tuesday reversed course on a decision to end a long-running extradition treaty with the United States after reaching an agreement with U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s administration. The reversal came as the Trump administration has struck agreements with a number of Central American nations to receive deported migrants from other nations, often…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":9273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/b6ea16b\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2453x1634+0+0\/resize\/980x653!\/format\/webp\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2Fd1%2Fd1%2Fc65cced51e49a726c8bff7920fca%2Ff05ae3ba003c4760a9cfb8cb1757ea9f","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-public-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9274,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9271\/revisions\/9274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericasecurityreport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}