Venezuela’s strongman Nicolas Maduro’s Communist Cuba-inspired influence throughout Latin America is making American lawmakers take pause, and continue warning of the growing new “Iron Curtain” (Socialism) rising in the hemisphere.
Since he took office and after sanctions were levied against him and his regime, a bipartisan effort by members of the U.S. Congress, including Senators Marco Rubio, Rick Scott, Robert Menendez, and Reps. Stephanie Murphy, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez, and Michael Waltz, have pressed both the Trump and Biden administrations to continue their hardline policies against Maduro’s regime.,
But while both Republican and Democratic lawmakers appear to be on the same page when it comes to addressing Maduro’s regime, his socialist views and influence continue to spread to countries like Honduras.
Honduras’s President Xiomara Castro, a longtime socialist sympathizer and supporter of Venezuela’s former socialist president Hugo Chavez, is now threatening to shut down her country’s free trade zones.
These special free trade zones or Honduran Economic Development and Employment Zones (ZEDEs), were created under the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). could be considered economic “lifelines” for Honduras.
Ending these free trade zones is seen as the first move to steering Honduras to the same type of Maduro-inspired socialism that has been realized in Venezuela and decimated the country's economy.
Rep. Waltz, who believes that the Russian, Chinese, and Iranian “Axis of Evil is actively trying to divide the U.S. and its Democrat partners in the region, is blaming the Biden administration for the surge and spread of socialism throughout the region
“The Biden Administration needs to utilize resources including the State Department’s Global Engagement Center to actively promote democratic values. Instead, unfortunately, we see this Administration and the Left legitimizing socialist autocrats, with Special Presidential Envoy John Kerry chummy meeting with Nicolas Maduro and Congressional Democrats’ pilgrimages to Cuba to meet with the dictator,” stated Rep. Waltz in The Floridian’s request for comment for this story.
Waltz continued, putting an emphasis on Honduras’ alignment with Dictator Maduro’s (pictured) regime on the heels of a $10.775 billion complaint that was filed against the Castro administration of Honduras for threatening to expropriate U.S. investment in a special economic zone called Prospera.
Walt is supporting sanctions to be placed on Castro and her government if American economic interests in Honduras are threatened.
“Any expropriation of American properties will not only send a deep chill on further foreign investment critical for Honduras’s future economic development, but will also should be met with swift and severe sanctions. I hope Honduras does not follow the Cuban, Venezuelan, or Nicaraguan blueprints on how to ruin an economy,” stated Rep. Waltz.
Congressman-elect Cory Mills, a foreign policy expert who has been warning of the Russian “Iron Curtain” that has been rising in the Western Hemisphere, is also expressing concern over Honduras’ deep plunge into Maduro-influenced Socialism, and is focusing on the “geopolitical alignment between Russia-China to target America.”
“The fact that mainland China has small jungle factories in the Darian gap producing fentanyl and other drugs used to poison and kill Americans and helping these drugs to be trafficked across our border, and the increased Russian support of the Chavistas in Venezuela promote socialism in Colombia and Honduras shows a concerted effort and further proof of the geopolitical alignment between Russia-China to target America,” stated Mills.
Like Rep. Waltz, Mills also believes that sanctions against the Honduran government are warranted if American interests are threatened.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar recently told The Floridian that the Honduran zones are vitally important for “economic prosperity” in Honduras, and “create a strong incentive for investment” in that country.
Rep. Salazar added that the best way to combat the growing threat of socialism in the region was to “embrace the economic liberties the Castro-Maduro-Ortega axis denies their own people.”
“The Honduran people have the right to economic prosperity like any other nation. Part of the United States’ commitment to building this prosperity requires embracing free market principles here and abroad,” said Rep. Salazar. The availability of ZEDEs creates a strong incentive for investment in Honduras, a country that would greatly benefit from increased economic development. The best way to fight socialism in Latin America is to embrace the economic liberties the Castro-Maduro-Ortega axis denies their own people. Expanding ZEDEs and similar economic projects do exactly that.”
