Susan Glasser is editor of Politico.

Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández came to Washington this week with just about the toughest hand a world leader can play: His tiny, impoverished country is both very dependent on what happens here in the United States and more or less without leverage to shape it. The only leverage, in fact, that Honduras and its small, equally troubled neighbors Guatemala and El Salvador have found recently has come in the form of small children, tens of thousands of whom have clambered over the U.S. border this year in numbers so large and so unexpected they’ve created an immigration crisis that, at the least, has succeeded in placing Central America’s plague of drugs, violence and poverty on the Washington agenda in a way it wouldn’t have been otherwise. That said, it’s still not clear what, if anything, will come of the new state of affairs—at least not when it comes to Honduras, so deadly that its city of San Pedro Sula has been dubbed “the murder capital of the world” and so politically troubled that Washington hardly blinked when its elected president was toppled in a coup a few years back. Politico Magazine editor Susan Glasser met with President Hernández Friday—and found a leader deeply skeptical about the United States, from its refusal to acknowledge the role our own demand for drugs has had in creating his country’s cycle of violence, to our poor record of delivering significant aid. Their edited conversation, translated from Spanish by Politico reporter Jose DelReal, follows.

***


Susan Glasser: Mr. President, we’re in crisis mode here in Washington over this question of the border. And in particular the plight of the children coming to the United States unaccompanied has captured the public’s attention. But the politics of this is, to be blunt, a disaster. There’s no real sense that we have solutions, or even that President Obama can win passage for his proposed $3.7 billion plan to deal with the crisis, and I’m curious what you most want to say to the president and to the politicians here in Washington. How much responsibility do they have for this crisis?

President Hern á ndez: First, I would like to tell leaders in Washington: A Central America with violence caused by drugs, a Central America without opportunities, a Central America that doesn’t have space for economic growth at the rate the population needs, will be an enormous cost and an enormous danger to the United States. On the contrary, a Central America in peace, a Central America that is prosperous, a Central American with economic growth, a Central America where violence is controlled, is a great investment for the United States. It is a great benefit, not a cost.

Now, how to do that? That’s through shared responsibility. The United States is responsible, Central America is responsible, and Mexico is responsible. We have assumed our commitment [as in “responsibility”] and our visit today requires talking with leaders in Washington and structuring a plan dividing that responsibility. And I think that, until now, what we’ve been talking about with congressional leaders is moving on a good path. I would expect that that the electoral politics that are playing right now will not affect a decision that has to do with tending to a humanitarian crisis. When we talk about the children [on the border], they are human beings. Human beings who are in a difficult situation. In that sense, I would expect that the electoral debate doesn’t affect [the response].

SG: There’s been a big debate about who’s responsible for the influx of children coming here: how much is a result of confusion around U.S. law. You think that that does affect the children coming?

JH: That does.The problem is that that ambiguity, that lack of clarity, is used by coyotes [traffickers] to perversely deceive the families that are here, telling them that they can bring their kids and that their entry can be resolved legally later. But another problem is that they deceive the people in Central America, telling them, “take kids to the border and they’ll be received and admitted,” when we know that’s not true.

That confusion is due to a lack of clarity, but there’s another important cause in relation to Honduras. If you take a map of the municipalities where drugs pass, and overlay a map of the municipalities where the kids are coming, they match perfectly.

SG: San Pedro Sula [the Honduran city that is the murder capital of the world] is where most of the people are coming from.

JH: Exactly. But another side of it is the trafficking of dollars, payment for the drugs.

SG: Your point is that the United States is responsible for creating the demand for the drugs—and the violence that it has caused in the country—that we have not accepted really our share of the responsibility for that.

JH: We all share responsibility, from those who produce the drug to the transit countries, but also the country that uses the drugs. And the United States is the great consumer of the drugs. The advantage that you have here—if you can call it an advantage—is that the violence has been separated from the transit of drugs. That’s why for many officials and public servants the drug problem in the United States is one of public health. In Central America, the drug problem is life or death. That’s why it’s important that the United States assume its responsibility. They fixed the problem in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami, separating the violence from drug trafficking, or at least controlling the violence.

SG: Your foreign minister was interviewed on NPR and said that it’s “outrageous” that the United States has spent so much money on border security and so little money helping Honduras and the other countries of the Northern Triangle. Do you agree with that? What should the United States be doing to assist Honduras more directly?

JH: I return to my point. A Central America at peace, with less drug violence, and with opportunities, is a great investment for the United States. On the contrary, if they are only investing in border security and not in the source of the problem, in the genesis of the problem, then we will have more of the same.

SG: And is that an outrage that we have our priorities so wrong?

JH: I would say that it’s a miscalculation. Of course for us it’s uncomfortable and frustrating knowing that our neighbor isn’t doing its part.

SG: President Obama has proposed this 3.7 billion dollar package, and even then it’s not clear whether Congress will actually approve that. Only a small amount, something like $300 million, is supposed to go directly to the countries in the region. Is there some more concrete form of assistance that would stop this flood of migrants?

JH: There was an initiative by the name of CARSI (Central America Regional Security Initiative) that all the countries of South America and the Caribbean see as a practical joke. In Guatemala many years back it was said that there would be an enormous investment in this same problem, the violence. Almost $3 billion . Practically nothing has arrived. And so we don’t want to be deceived again.

SG: So you’re skeptical based on history?

JH: Yes.

SG: Honduras is a small country. It must be very painful for you to be the president of what people call the murder capital of the world. Do you see any prospect for not having that be the thing that you’re number one in?

JH: We are working on that. And we are working hard. We have some improvements. But we have a lot more to do. It is not enough. That is the reason we need help. Help from the people who demand this consumption of drugs.