Honduras has threatened to expel US troops, in retaliation for the plans of future President Donald Trump mass deportations refugees and asylum seekers entering the US 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 smaller 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 review the country’s military cooperation with the US if President-elect Donald Trump continues mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Castro stated that US military facilities in Honduras, particularly the Soto Cano Air Base, would “lose all reason to exist” if these deportations took place. But she also took the opportunity to criticize more broadly the longstanding US military presence on Honduran soil.
“Faced with the hostile attitude of the mass expulsion of our brothers, we would have to think about changing our policy of cooperation with the United States, especially in the military field, where for decades, without paying a single cent, they keep military bases on our territory, which in this case would lose all reason of existence in Honduras,” she said in a Spanish statement broadcast on national television.
How important are US military bases in Honduras?
The U.S. military presence in Honduras, while centered at 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 alleged communist threats in the region, hosts more than 1,000 US military and civilian personnel. It is also one of the few places other than Guantanamo that large aircraft can land between the US and Colombia.
The base serves as a key staging point for the rapid deployment of US forces to the region, including disaster relief and aid management, and for counter-narcotics operations.
Its location provides proximity to drug trafficking corridors in Central and South America, which also makes it a key location for surveillance and interdiction.
However, some experts have criticized the US justification for its military presence in Soto Can after Washington backed the government of Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was eventually extradited to the US in 2022 for drug and money-laundering crimes.
Hernandez was twice president of Honduras and is serving a 45-year prison sentence in New York starting in June 2024.
“It is hypocritical to say that they use it [Soto Cano] to fight drug trafficking while the US supported, legitimized and poured millions of dollars into the Honduran president 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 US is not paying Honduras for the base, Soto Cano serves the Central American nation as well.
“The U.S. military presence in Honduras is generally popular, contributes economically, and provides specific benefits to Honduras in terms of infrastructure development, intelligence, and emergency assistance during times of extreme weather that often affect Honduras,” said Eric Olson, a global fellow at the Wilson Center.
How significant is the threat – and why is Honduras creating it?
Experts say the threat from Honduras marks a significant moment in Central American geopolitics.
“I think this is a really fascinating and powerful turning point in the role of the US taking for granted that it will dominate the Western Hemisphere, especially that it will dominate Central America,” Frank said.
Frank said the U.S. military might be particularly inclined to keep Soto Cano amid competition with China, which has no military presence in Central America.
Honduras also would not want to sever ties with the US, analysts say. The country relies on remittances from its citizens abroad: 27 percent of its gross domestic product came from remittances in 2022. And its largest diaspora is in the U.S., home to about 5 percent of the Honduran population — more than 500,000 people — according to Pew Research Center Assessments.
Hondurans play a key role in the US economy, especially in labor-intensive sectors. In the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore in March 2024, one of the six construction workers who died 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 US in 2025, a number the Central American nation is not ready to accommodate all of a sudden.
Without remittances from its citizens in the US, the Honduran economy could also take a big hit.
How likely is Honduras to continue?
Some analysts see the threat as a negotiating tactic rather than an immediate policy shift, and say Honduras lacks the leverage to meaningfully influence U.S. policy.
“In the end, I feel like Honduras is threatening with a very weak hand,” Olson told Al Jazeera.
Frank described the move as a “preemptive strike” against Trump and a significant affirmation of the sovereignty of Honduras and Central America.
Trump has promised swift deportations 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 tariff on Mexico and Canada if they don’t stop the flow of migrants and fentanyl to the US.
How might the US respond – and what does it 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, is “playing with fire”.
“I can’t imagine that President Trump will take kindly to threats to the US military from a government that Republicans are already eager to categorize with Nicaragua and Venezuela,” he said, predicting that bilateral relations could “poised to deteriorate” regardless of the Soto Can outcome.
Olson said that for the US, a potential severance of military relations with Honduras would likely be seen as disappointing, but not critical to its military operations.
Truth be told, Soto Cano played a key role in the 1980s in the US-backed war against Nicaragua and supported operations in El Salvador.
“It has a long and nasty history,” Frank noted, including its use during a military coup in Honduras in 2009, when President Manuel Zelaya’s plane that refueled there was removed.
But Olson suggested that Soto Cano Air Force Base no longer has the strategic importance it had during the 1980s and 1990s.
“The U.S. military has been considering its withdrawal from Soto Can for some time,” Olson said, adding that missions such as counter-narcotics and emergency response could be conducted from other locations.
Frank also warned that Republicans, including Marco Rubio, are likely to frame President Castro’s government as aligned with anti-American governments such as those in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
“This is likely to turn into a broader anti-communist Cold War framework,” she said.
