This is the US military base in Honduras, key to the deportations promised by Trump

The US Soto Cano Air Base, also known as the Palmerola base, has been located in Honduras since 1982, but since the beginning of the year it has acquired relevance in the geopolitical sphere due to a warning from the Honduran president, Xiomara Castro, who announced that her government will review military cooperation policies with the United States if mass deportations of Hondurans are carried out.

Although Castro said that the United States has military bases in Honduras, for which it does not pay “not a single cent,” he did not specify the amount or type. However, it is known that the North American nation has at least one important one in the Central American country: Palmerola.

In Palmerola, there are 500 US military personnel and 500 Honduran and US civilians, according to Joint Task Force-Bravothe US military unit that operates at the base.

It is used by the military for operations against transnational organized crime, including drug trafficking, in addition to providing humanitarian assistance and support in natural disasters, such as those caused by hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020.

It also functions as an international airport for Honduras. However, he did not always play these roles.

Palmerola was born from cooperation between Honduras and the United States during the 1980s. According to analysts consulted by the Voice of Americathe United States used it as part of a strategy to contain the advance of revolutionary movements in Central America, particularly in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

“Palmerola was born as a base to control the advance of international communism, particularly in the Sandinista government of Nicaraguaand also to have a strategic point in the heart of America, which is Central America,” he told the VOA Reina Rivera Joya, lawyer and analyst specialized in human rights in Honduras.

When Central American countries began to sign peace agreements in the 1990s, which ended civil wars between governments and guerrilla groups, the base reoriented its function toward anti-crime operations, such as controlling drug trafficking air routes, among others. It also provided humanitarian assistance, explained Rivera Joya.

“There were a couple of fires in Tegucigalpa in which the Honduran Armed Forces did not have the ‘basket’ planes to drop water. So, the US military provided that support,” he added.

Commercial flight headquarters, old controversy

Since 2021, Palmerola also functions as an international airportreceiving commercial flights that previously landed at the risky Toncontín International Airport in Tegucigalpa, known for its short runways and history of accidents.

When he presided over Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, President Castro’s husband, asked the US administration to grant him part of the base because the Toncontín airport had proven to be unviable, specified Napoleón Campos, an expert in international relations, in an interview with the VOA. “The United States rearranged itself and granted a partition of the base,” he added.

For Campos, the fact that Castro conditions the permanence of the US military base in Honduras is related to the electoral process that is approaching in the Central American country at the end of 2025.

“I think the president needs to tie some type of proclamation to the defense of migrants using this issue, but I think she has done it in the wrong direction,” Campos added.

According to the analysts consulted, Palmerola is a conglomerate of great economic and social relevance in Honduras, which not only generates dividends through the airport, but also strengthens a training arm of the Honduran Army with the Military Aviation Academy, located in the same base.

“The biggest problem (of the controversy around Palmerola) would be to ‘strain’ relations with the United States because our economy depends in a very high percentage on the United States,” he told the VOAthe Honduran political analyst, Leonardo Pineda.

In June 2024, the Central Bank of Honduras reported that The United States was the main destination for Honduran exportswith a total of 1,185 million dollars, while Guatemala, in second place, received 251 million dollars, a figure significantly less than that of the United States.

In addition, the annual average of remittances that Honduras receives is approximately 9,000 million dollars.

“The United States has too many cards to drown us, but I think it is also important to remind them that they also have interests in our countries and that their main interest should be a win-win,” added Rivera Joya.

Honduras’ reaction comes in the face of the promises of the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, to intensify migration policies, focusing its efforts on deporting undocumented migrants.

Is it possible to move the base?

This is not the first controversy that Palmerola has faced: since its installation, the military base has been the subject of protests by land defenders and those who consider that it has functioned as an instrument of influence for the United States in the internal affairs of Honduras.

Following President Xiomara Castro’s statements, Senator Mike Lee suggested that, if Honduras decided not to allow the continuation of the military base on its territory, it could be moved to Guatemala, a country he described as“friendlier to the US.”

According to international relations experts, Palmerola has received significant investments in infrastructure since 1982, which makes its transfer an expensive and logistically complex process.

Moving the base would also require renegotiating bilateral agreements between Honduras and the United States, a decision that would depend on the Honduran Congress. Then, it would be necessary to establish new legal frameworks for its operation in another country.

The ruling party in Honduras owns almost half of the country’s Congress.

This is not the first case in which Honduras opens a debate with the United States about the need to review bilateral agreements. In August 2024, Honduras ended the extradition agreement with the United States, a decision seen as a setback in the fight against crime.

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