How President Trump Can Crush Socialism and Save a Freedom City in Honduras

In the impoverished nation of Honduras, there are geopolitical developments afoot that have major implications for U.S. policy and the future of freedom throughout the world.

In the impoverished nation of Honduras, there are geopolitical developments afoot that have major implications for U.S. policy and the future of freedom throughout the world. The story begins with the relatively obscure charter city experiment known as Próspera.

Próspera was founded in 2017 as an experiment in freedom, funded through venture capital from Silicon Valley luminaries like Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Sam Altman. It was allowed through a charter city project commissioned through the Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). The ZEDEs were approved in 2013 in Honduras and are an experiment in freedom devised by some of the world’s leading economic visionaries, and similar charter city projects are springing up throughout the world. The ZEDEs, three of which are currently operational in Honduras, are an oasis of growth and innovation in a nation beset by corruption and poverty, the heir to Congressman Jack Kemp’s idea for enterprise zones to revitalize moribund U.S. inner cities.

In recent years, Próspera has grown and become an example of how libertarian economics can work in a practical sense. Over 222 businesses have been incorporated in the city. Experimental medical treatments have blossomed in Próspera where residents have the freedom of choice to determine on their own what is best for their health and well-being. The city has become a haven for Bitcoin entrepreneurs who are sick of being taxed to death in first-world countries. The beaches in Roatan, the island where Próspera is located, are some of the most beautiful in the world, and there is nothing stopping Próspera from becoming a world hub for innovation, except the socialist regime currently ruling Honduras.

The former president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, was a staunch supporter of the ZEDEs, supporting free market reforms, and was a staunch ally of President Trump. After leaving office due to term limits, Hernandez’s successor in the conservative National Party lost to the far-left Liberty and Refoundation party. One day after he left office, Hernandez was indicted by the U.S. government on drug conspiracy charges based largely from testimony from drug dealers punished by Hernandez’s strict law-and-order policies against the narco trade. The Biden deep state had eliminated a strong conservative voice in the region and empowered radical socialists – a move severely jeopardizing Próspera’s utopian aims.

The appropriately named Xiomara Castro, the despotic socialist ruler of Honduras, has waged war against the ZEDEs, making typical arguments against capitalist oppression. In 2022, the Honduran Congress voted to repeal the law enacting the ZEDEs and passed a constitutional reform intending to abolish Próspera for good, returning the land to abject poverty and despair. These reforms are clearly against the law, as Próspera and two other active ZEDEs were granted a 50-year guarantee of legal stability when they were enacted, but when has the law stopped a leftist tyrant from enacting their will before?

In a starkly political maneuver, the Honduras’ supreme court ruled that ZEDEs were unconstitutional in Sept. 2024. This will halt the construction of new ZEDEs while leaving the current cities in limbo pending the Court’s "explanatory addendum" stating how they should be handled. Meanwhile, Próspera has filed a $10.775 billion lawsuit in the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) over the violation of their agreement, prompting Castro to abruptly leave the ICSID in violation of a long-standing World Bank treaty. The uncertainty has halted development and prevented the potential of the ZEDE program from being fully realized.

Keeping Próspera and the ZEDE program in place has ramifications that could revolutionize life in Honduras as well as the rest of the underdeveloped world. Side-stepping bureaucracy and unleashing the potential of the market will lift nations from their endemic struggles, becoming a blessing to millions living in abject poverty. Central planners and technocratic manipulators in places like Washington D.C. and Davos would prefer population control measures to deal with the world’s impoverished, but capital investment in charter cities like Próspera offer a contrasting vision for a decentralized, more developed, more humane world. Demagogic rulers like Castro exploit envy and bigotry in their appeals to ignorance because they would prefer their people live under their thumb in squalor than be free and excel.

While she demonizes the ZEDEs, Castro’s regime is in shambles. She is openly conspiring with known Venezuelan drug dealers, a move that “surprised” the U.S. Ambassador to Honduras. Meanwhile, her brother-in-law was caught on video negotiating bribes for drug money to prop up Castro’s political ambitions. After this video was released, Castro unilaterally left a 100-year-old extradition treaty with the U.S., making her nation a safe haven for narco terror worldwide presumably to protect her criminal brother-in-law.

Castro’s statements in recent weeks in defiance of President Trump’s proposal of mass deportations have raised her profile and caused enmity to build against her from the ‘America First’ right. Castro’s provocations of President Trump, a desperate attempt to rally Hondurans to her side in an election year, may backfire and prove to be her undoing as Trump has quite a bit of leverage at his disposal to upend her fledgling regime.

Castro’s socialist regime is desperate to rob the Honduran people of realizing the potential of their nation as the political winds shift against her style of rule. The shining examples of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and Javier Milei in Argentina have the people of Central and South America waking up to the lies of the socialists. It is not the intrepid investors of Próspera who are the enemy of the people but the regime itself. A well-timed pardon of former President Hernandez by President Trump could be the final Castro’s socialist regime is desperate to rob the Honduran people of realizing the potential of their nation as the political winds shift against her style of rule.

The shining examples of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and Javier Milei in Argentina have the people of Central and South America waking up to the lies of the socialists. It is not the intrepid investors of Próspera who are the enemy of the people but the regime itself. A well-timed pardon of former President Hernandez by President Trump could be the final death blow to Castro with national elections set to take place later this year. Castro’s regime could be upended and Honduras liberated without firing a single shot or deploying a single troop in what would be a massive strategic victory for U.S. interests in the region. May the Próspera experiment prevail, the common good be saved, and global leftism be damned by the benevolent hand of President Trump!