The recent conviction of Tony Hernández for massive cocaine smuggling in a federal court case in which his brother, Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, was an unindicted co-conspirator demonstrates one thing beyond a doubt: Honduras is a narco-state. The equally compelling evidence of widespread corruption, electoral fraud, and savage repression confirms Honduras’s status as a rogue state and begs comparison with Venezuela, which has faced similar accusations.

Venezuela, however, is paying an infinitely higher price in the form of international sanctions and other regime-change efforts. Even if one accepts as accurate the denunciations against the government of President Nicolas Maduro put forward by most of its critics, Venezuela doesn’t reach Honduras’s level of unethical and undemocratic behavior.

This is just one example of the notorious inconsistencies of US foreign policy, dating back to the beginning of the Cold War. Long before Trump, Washington condemned some governments for violating democratic norms and embraced others that were just as bad, if not worse. It threatened military intervention or carried it out against nations for reasons that could have applied to others that received substantial military assistance from Washington.