The real reasons why Guatemala and Honduras sided with Trump on Jerusalem

Amid the roar of condemnation over the Trump administration’s stance on Jerusalem, there were bleats of support from far-flung corners of the world.

In the vote at the United Nations last week on whether to condemn the decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Micronesia sided with the United States along with an archipelago of geopolitically obscure outposts: The Marshall Islands, Togo, Nauru, Palau.

And then there was a pair of allies closer to home – Guatemala and Honduras, the only two countries in Latin America to support the US move.

Guatemala followed up its UN vote by announcing this week that it would follow Trump’s lead and move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a decision that has caused a backlash in the region and beyond.

Jordan’s foreign minister described it as an “absurd provocation.” Bolivian President Evo Morales, a veteran critic of the United States, wrote Monday on Twitter that Guatemala had “sold its dignity to the empire to not lose the crumbs from USAID.”

After the vote on Jerusalem, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, invited those countries who did not condemn Washington to come to a reception to thank them for their “friendship to the United States.”