Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

On 1 December 2025, Donald Trump granted a full presidential pardon to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who served from 2014 to 2022. Hernández was serving a 45-year prison sentence in the United States for conspiring to transport over 400 tonnes of cocaine to the US and for protecting drug lords in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes, marking one of the largest trafficking cases in recent history. He was tried and convicted by a US federal court following a jury trial (source: US Congress website, published on December 8, 2025; https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12621).

This clemency, defended by the White House as a correction to “excessive prosecution,” has drawn strong criticism from many elected officials and observers, who point out that an individual convicted of extensive collusion with cartels is now free without being held accountable for his actions (Source: U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, published on December 2, 2025, https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/dem/releases/durbin-condemns-pardon-of-former-president-of-honduras).

Trump wants to show foreign heads of state who are compliant with him that he has the power to release them regardless of their crime

By doing so, Trump wants to show foreign heads of state who are compliant with him that he has the power to release them regardless of their crime. Trump also wanted to intervene in Honduras’ domestic politics. Trump’s announcement of the pardon was made on November 28, 2025, two days before the presidential election, in a context where the candidate supported by Trump, Nasry “Tito” Asfura, of the National Party (linked to the former Honduran president), was competing with two other candidates (source: https://www.intellinews.com/conservative-asfura-leads-tight-honduras-presidential-race-with-Trump’s backing 414328). Of the two other candidates, one, Salvador Nasralla, was less compliant with Trump than Nasry Asfura, and the other, Rixi Moncada, represented the left wing inherited from the current president, Xiomara Castro, who is openly critical of Trump. The official result was very close. Trump’s candidate was declared the winner with 40.3% against Nasralla with 39.7%. The left-wing candidate officially obtained 19.2%. The two “losing” candidates denounced fraud but did not recognise the results. Rixi Moncada described the proclamation of Nasry Asfura’s victory as fraud and foreign interference, accusing the National Electoral Council (CNE) of “assassinating” Honduran democracy by obeying the instructions of imperialism—a reference to US pressure and Donald Trump’s support for the winning candidate.

 Dozens of boats were destroyed, and their occupants were murdered on Trump’s orders

Since August 2025, dozens of boats have been attacked in international waters in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific by the US military in the name of the war on drugs. The occupants (more than 130 in total between 2 September 2025 and mid-February 2026) were killed without any evidence of guilt being made public and without any form of trial. On Trump’s orders, the US military did not board these boats but destroyed them along with their occupants. These actions have been described as extrajudicial executions by organisations such as Human Rights Watch (see https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/12/16/us-military-boat-strikes-constitute-extrajudicial-killings published on 16 December 2025) and UN agencies and experts (see https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/09/us-war-narco-terrorists-violates-right-life-warn-un-experts-after-deadly published on 16 September 2025 and https://reliefweb.int/report/united-states-america/unprovoked-lethal-strikes-united-states-against-vessels-sea-may-amount-international-crimes-un-experts published on 4 November 2025). They have also been denounced by members of the US Congress. No indictment, no adversarial debate, no judicial decision: all it took was a decision by Trump for his army to execute alleged criminals without any form of trial and thus commit crimes.

Since August 2025, dozens of boats have been attacked in international waters in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. All it took was a decision by Trump for his army to execute alleged criminals without any form of trial

A few weeks later, on January 3, 2026, US forces carried out a military operation against Venezuela, resulting in the capture, sequestration, and imprisonment of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in a US prison. Trump accuses Maduro of “narco-terrorism” and drug trafficking, but the Trump administration has not presented any evidence to back up these accusations.

What makes this juxtaposition of criminal actions on Trump’s part so damning is that it reveals a brutal and totally arbitrary political logic. Pardoning Hernández amounts to erasing a conviction for massive cocaine trafficking while justifying major military action against Venezuela and its president, Maduro, on the basis of the same fight against drugs.

The real motivation behind the attack on Venezuela has nothing to do with drugs, but everything to do with geopolitical control of resources

The real motivation behind the attack on Venezuela has nothing to do with drugs but everything to do with geopolitical control of resources—in particular Venezuelan oil, among the largest reserves in the world. This battle is not so much a fight against drug trafficking as a strategic reconfiguration of US action in the Western Hemisphere, centred on energy (and rare earths, in the case of Greenland).

In short, the Trump administration has shown that it can absolve a former president found guilty of protecting political interests while carrying out extrajudicial executions of alleged drug traffickers or criminalising another leader without public evidence in the service of obvious geopolitical objectives. This is the most blatant application of the cynical double standard policy practised by the occupant of the White House.

 Rodrigo Duterte, ex-président des Philippines, jugé pour exécutions extrajudiciaires

The real motivation behind the attack on Venezuela has nothing to do with drugs but everything to do with geopolitical control of resources—in particular Venezuelan oil, among the largest reserves in the world. This battle is not so much a fight against drug trafficking as a strategic reconfiguration of US action in the Western Hemisphere, centred on energy (and rare earths, in the case of Greenland).

In short, the Trump administration has shown that it can absolve a former president found guilty of protecting political interests while carrying out extrajudicial executions of alleged drug traffickers or criminalising another leader without public evidence in the service of obvious geopolitical objectives. This is the most blatant application of the cynical double standard policy practised by the occupant of the White House.

 Conclusion :

Washington wants to acquit or punish according to its interests, whether it is to support a political ally in a foreign election or to seize strategic resources

Hernández’s pardon and Maduro’s sequestration are not isolated exceptions but symbols of a systemic logic: Washington wants to acquit or punish according to its interests, whether it is supporting a political ally in a foreign election or seizing strategic resources, such as Venezuelan oil. The White House demonstrates that law and morality can give way to political calculation and the most sordid economic interests, as seen in extrajudicial executions in international waters and total leniency for known criminals. The result is the cynicism of double standards applied on an international scale.