By Shane CroucherShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberThe centrist Liberal Party candidate Salvador Nasralla widened his narrow lead over the Trump-endorsed conservative candidate Nasry "Tito" Asfura in the Honduran presidential election, with a White House threat of "hell to pay" hanging over the ongoing count.
At the time of writing, Nasralla leads Asfura by 40.35 percent to 39.56 percent of the more than two-thirds of votes counted so far, according to the Honduras National Electoral Council, a gap of more than 19,000 votes. Asfura was initially in the lead on Monday by just a few hundred votes, a virtual tie.
U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to pull funding from Honduras if Asfura loses, saying before the vote that he "will not be throwing good money after bad, because a wrong Leader can only bring catastrophic results to a country". He sees Asfura as an important potential ally in his administration's fight against the illegal drug trade and "narcocommunists".
Trump posted to Truth Social on Monday after the counting was stopped a day before: "Looks like Honduras is trying to change the results of their Presidential Election. If they do, there will be hell to pay!"
His funding threat to Honduras echoes the tactic he used to get behind his ally in Argentina, the libertarian President Javier Milei, who faced tough midterm elections and came out on top. And it forms part of a broader strategy to reshape the leadership across Latin America, with Venezuela's socialist President Nicolas Maduro firmly in Trump's sights.
This is a developing article. Updates to follow.
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