What Drove The US' Tolerance For Honduras' Fraudulent Re-election?

Honduras is ridden with violence following fraud allegations in the country's recent presidential election. The United States' tolerance for the now reelected authoritarian leader has played a key role. 

The government has deployed excessive force to disperse protests and is likely to have taken part in extrajudicial killings following the contested race, leading to the deaths of over 30 people, The Guardian's Sara Kinosian reports. 

Amidst this crisis, the United States remains silent on the military police's responsibility, despite having funded security forces and ignoring repeated calls from Senators and House Representatives to address the situation. But the US' disregard for democracy and transparency in Honduras is far from novel. Indeed, as The Intercept's Danielle Mackey explains in a Dec. 23 piece, this is an old standard.

Kleptocracy and the War on Drugs

Mackey chronicles the growth of drug-related criminal activity in the province of Olancho, where traditional trades like logging, ranching, and mining double as money laundering schemes. The country's economy is running on money laundering, indeed, as moguls and politicians, including high level authorities of government, have been lured by the prospect of easy money. 

"The US government has always known about the inbred kleptocracy of Honduras", as Mackey explains, but successive administrations have preferred to cultivate the oligarchy, and at present, the government of Juan Orlando Hernandez, which they see as key US allies – Honduras was one of a few countries who rejected the UN's motion against Donald Trump's decision to move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, for example. 

This is probably why the Trump administration has been so tolerant of what many condemn as an outright electoral fraud.