Note: This analysis was requested by a reader who felt something was being left out about Nicaragua. Here, I’m providing all of my readers with much-needed information and context.
Recently, Nicaragua made the news in the United States due to an out-of-context story about Nicaraguan co-President Daniel Ortega. The claim, according to the Associated Press and other legacy news outlets, is that he and lawmakers in Nicaragua “moved to abolish” all future elections. The narrative is being used to villainize Nicaragua with other talking points. The reality is that Nicaragua is working on legislation that would prevent foreign interference in its elections.
Looking at the why, as I have covered extensively, it seems more than justified.
Citing the recent elections in Latin America that involved direct interference from the White House, leading to many questionable leaders being installed, some with ties to drug smuggling operations, and a recently exposed disinformation network, what Nicaragua is proposing isn’t much different from Brazil’s legislation to stem disinformation and election interference from outside the country. Whether that legislation has been successful is still debated today.
However, the disinformation network and the coinciding plots exposed in the Hondurasgate leaks have detailed a devious plan directly tied to the U.S. to meddle in the internal affairs of nearly every nation in Latin America and the Caribbean. The evidence laid out before us and the rhetoric coming directly from the White House make it abundantly clear. There is no ambiguity.
The news in the United States, however, omits this crucial context and takes Ortega saying “no more elections via which they can try cheating their way to government so as to cheat their way to taking power,” and focuses its reports only on the “no more elections” part. Once the major newswires, such as the Associated Press, ran the story, like the 40 beheaded babies, it was regurgitated without validation by other outlets. The Ortega story died quickly due to the expected broad pushback across various sectors. Find the full transcript here. Full video below.
Essentially, Nicaragua wants to ban foreign-backed candidates. Something that’s also frowned upon in the United States and much of the world.
But that didn’t stop the Department of State from continuing to push the narrative. They have the news article to back their claims, and they love using those seemingly planted stories. The process was identical to that just after the 2024 Venezuelan election, when the Washington Post and the Associated Press published articles claiming Nicolas Maduro lost the election but buried the fact that they couldn’t authenticate the data they used to make the claim.
My analysis of that election showed why that data couldn’t and shouldn’t be trusted.
“The AP could not independently verify the authenticity of the 24,532 tally sheets provided by the opposition. The AP successfully extracted data from 96% of the provided vote tallies, with the remaining 4% of images too poor to parse.”
There are many false narratives about Nicaragua, of which, like most propaganda, are based on a kernel of truth. Finding negative articles in the U.S. about a perceived enemy is easy. Instead, in this article, we’ll look at what the U.S. media doesn’t say and what the data does say about Nicaragua, leaving the reader to make up their mind without the propaganda. Let’s face it, we can’t trust what the U.S. government says about foreign countries. If there’s just one thing the history of U.S. foreign policy tells us, it is that the U.S. is undeniably dishonest.
Popularity
Nicaragua’s National Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) rose to prominence in 1979, when it overthrew the brutal U.S.-backed dictatorship of the Somoza family. The family ruled Nicaragua for 43 years. Almost immediately after the Sandinista government took power, the U.S. began a subversive campaign to overthrow the popular movement. Under President Jimmy Carter, the provocations were clandestine and done through the CIA. However, as soon as President Ronald Regan came to power, economic strangulation began, followed by authorizing the CIA to back and train a counter-revolutionary paramilitary group, later to be known as “The Contras.”
After launching the first military attacks in Nicaragua, the U.S. Congress attempted to withhold funding for future operations with the passage of the Boland Amendment. Reagan countered by authorizing the illegal funding of a war in Nicaragua through banned arms sales to Iran and allowing the Contras to smuggle drugs into the United States. The depth to which the U.S. went in its attempt to remove the popular revolutionary government was met with shock and disdain within the country. It’s a part of Nicaragua’s history that isn’t ignored.
Today, the government still seems popular based on voter turnout (68.7% in 2021), which is often used internationally as a marker of support for a government. This likely counters ideas you may have had about Nicaragua because most people in the United States are informed about foreign countries via the news we’re supposed to trust. However, the full story can’t be told without all the context, and looking into why a supposed “dictatorship” is so popular takes a bit of research. Its popularity explains why the people don’t revolt at the behest of the U.S.
Social Programs
Immediately after the end of U.S. military aggression against Nicaragua in 1990, reductions in poverty became evident. However, after current President Daniel Ortega came to power in 2007, the country made even greater strides, cutting poverty to just 24%, down from 48%. Extreme poverty also saw major declines, from 17% to below 7% in 2021. To accomplish this, Nicaragua spends 52% of its budget on social services, such as healthcare and education, and heavily subsidized public transportation and electricity.
Nicaragua’s infrastructure has also experienced expansive growth. Since 2007, the government has expanded electricity coverage to 99.3% of the country, with over 60% coming from renewable sources, and has built thousands of miles of paved highways, which the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked among the best in Latin America. In 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave Nicaragua high marks, highlighting a 3.9% real GDP growth, with the economic index showing 3.4% GDP growth in 2026.
As world-leading organizations such as the WEF, IMF, and World Bank characterize Nicaragua’s fiscal policy as “remarkably disciplined, tight, and countercyclical,” the United States shifts focus away from this to target the country’s leadership. The news media ecosystem in the U.S. won’t mention any of these popular policies or the successes of implementing them. Because, like Cuba, a successful socialist project so close to home might cause U.S. voters to demand more.
Sovereignty
Nations with revolutionary histories, like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and others, build their national identities on those ideals. The United States isn’t any different. For the U.S., however, its revolutionary story has been manipulated over two centuries to present itself as a benevolent rebellion, when it was anything but. For the countries that the U.S. attempts to force its will upon, it’s much different, as the truth is more than sufficient.
For Nicaragua and many other countries, their pride comes from pushing back against U.S. imperialism multiple times, in addition to liberating themselves from colonial rule. While the United States lays claim to the region through the Monroe Doctrine, the Roosevelt Corollary, and now, the Trump Corollary, there are 700 million people in the region that the U.S. never talks to as it imposes its will on an entire hemisphere. Including an imposition on Canada.
Another aspect of Nicaragua’s governance lies in celebrating its successes despite being isolated by the U.S. Instead of viewing isolation from Western markets as a failure, many in Nicaragua see it as a successful, deliberate pivot toward a multilateral world order that doesn’t force nations to bow to U.S. corporate interests. Its partnerships with China, for example, are not something the U.S. takes kindly to, but Nicaraguans support.
Conclusion
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio talks of “Dictatorships that deny the unalienable rights of their citizens should not enjoy the same economic or political benefits as governments committed to defending hemispheric peace and security,” he’s wilfully ignoring that the people are directly benefiting in Nicaragua and that the U.S. is the threat to “peace and security” in much of the world.
As he urges the “international partners to immediately stop business-as-usual operations with this brutal dictatorship,” he is again weaponizing propaganda meant to seize control of a country and its resources. The brutality is in U.S. policy. Rubio and many high-ranking government officials have for decades ignored “dictatorships” like that of Saudi Arabia and communism in various countries, such as Vietnam and China, while supporting the U.S. in making trade and economic deals with them.
This tells us that the targeting of Latin American and Caribbean countries is about dominion: control over every aspect of the region’s society, corporate ownership of its resources, and leaving hundreds of millions of people without the wealth created from their land. In the end, what’s true for the hemispheres is also true for Nicaragua. The U.S. has never taken kindly to being kicked out of countries where it’s not welcome. It certainly despises countries that make it pay market value for products and natural resources. Nicaragua fits the bill.
Nicaragua is not only home to some of the most fertile land in the region and the largest freshwater lake in Latin America, but it also holds extensive gold and silver deposits, along with unexploited reserves of copper, lead, zinc, silver, and gypsum. Nicaragua is home to a massive protected rainforest, Bosawás Biosphere Reserve, the largest north of the Amazon. While many facetiously say that Nicaragua doesn’t have oil, so it shouldn’t worry about the U.S., the country holds vast resources that billionaire warmongers would love to get their hands on.
This article isn’t meant to show support for any government. It is meant to show you some of the story that isn’t being told. It’s here to provide you with context you won’t see in corporate-driven news. This article allows you to decide for yourself if the United States should intervene in yet another country’s internal politics (a violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter). We all know that the U.S. government routinely ignores international law. It behooves its voters to know the truth before agreeing to people dying for imperialist ambitions.
Full Video of the Event Where Ortega’s Statement Was Taken Out of Context (3 hrs)
The video takes place during the 47th anniversary celebration of the Sandinista Revolution. It was hosted by co-presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo.
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