After leaked recordings were recently published, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has openly accused Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, and right-wing groups in the United States and Ecuador of conspiring to influence the country’s May 31 presidential election. Petro also charged that many of Colombia’s right-wing groups, who have allegedly participated in political violence, have been spreading misinformation to Colombian and U.S. leaders while coordinating with others abroad.
In January, Petro said that U.S. President Donald Trump was thinking of “doing bad things in Colombia” and warned of White House plans to subvert democracy in the country. After a recent report by Radio Nacional de Colombia exposing a plot to destabilize the elections, Petro took to social media to say, “they would be preparing attacks to sabotage the elections.” Days later, Petro again responded to a separate report highlighting Ecuadorian government contracts worth $3.1 million awarded to a security company with ties to one of Ecuador’s largest gangs.
“I know that far-right sectors in Colombia who have traveled to Miami and Quito have built a kind of strategy so that Uribe’s far right wins the elections with his candidate, forgetting that it is that Colombian far right that is the main ally of Colombian drug trafficking,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on X.
Within days, another explosive investigative report exposed former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández in leaked audio recordings implicating Argentine President Javier Milei as allegedly financing campaigns against Petro and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Hernández, a notorious drug smuggler in Latin America, was sentenced in the U.S. in 2024 to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and arms trafficking. Trump pardoned him in December.
“I need you to please send about $150,000 to Rosales’ account, because we’re going to rent an apartment here and set up an office there to establish a Digital Journalism Unit,” said Hernández in a leaked recording of a phone call with the Honduran president. “Someone else from here, from the US President’s team, will manage it. Well, he’s one of the Republicans who are helping us. They’re going to set up a news site where they’ll publish important information about Manuel Zelaya and Xiomara Castro.”
According to the leaked recordings of Hernández via Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp, the goal of their campaign targeting leftist governments in Latin America is to produce content against Colombia, Mexico, and Honduras. In another excerpt, Hernández can be heard saying, “There are some cases coming against Mexico, there are some cases coming against Colombia.” Despite Hernández denying he made such statements and claiming the recordings are fake, the audio has been forensically verified as authentic.
The investigation, first published by Diario Red in Spain, has been dubbed Hondurasgate and has its own website dedicated to exposing political corruption in Honduras. Valeria Duarte Galleguillos’ reporting for Diario Red implicated not just Hernández, but several others. Current Honduran President Nasry Asfura and Vice President María Antonieta Mejía Sánchez are allegedly funneling money to the project from Honduran public funds and Milei’s government.
“The leaked audio recordings of conversations between Hernández, Nasry Asfura, and Vice President María Antonieta Mejía reveal the formation of a communications team financed with Honduran public funds and contributions from Javier Milei’s government exceeding half a million dollars,” wrote Galleguillos. “Their objective: to launch a media attack against the governments of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico.”
The leaked audio also implicated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Hernández alleged that people associated with Israel and pro-Israel groups financed lobbying efforts to secure his pardon and release from a U.S. prison. In responding to the recent investigations, Petro invoked Netanyahu, asking what he stood to gain by meddling in Mexico and Colombia’s elections and destabilizing Latin America.
“What reason does Mr. Netanyahu have for paying to free a major drug trafficker, former president of Honduras, solely for the purpose of destroying the governments of Colombia and Mexico?” asked Petro. “Doesn’t it demonstrate that those of us who fight on the front lines against the narco and are attacked by it are Mexico and Colombia?”
After a year in which Trump meddled in nearly every election in Latin America through public endorsements and coercion, the White House is signaling to the world that the United States is willing to start wars and destabilize an entire hemisphere to achieve its political aims. After the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a botched attack on Iran, and consistent threats against Cuba, Trump’s war path in Latin America and the Caribbean is far from over.
*I reached out to the office of Colombian President Gustavo Petro and the U.S. Department of State for comment. I have not received a response as of this publishing.
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