Since the Sandinistas returned to power in 2007, the government has made reducing poverty its top priority through well integrated programmes investing in free health care and education, gender equality programmes, and infrastructure improvements. 

Nicaragua is a country transformed: poverty and extreme poverty have been cut by half. The country’s only ‘crime’ is to exercise its right to national sovereignty and show that ‘a better world is possible’.

But all this is under threat from Trump. Strangling the economy and spreading disinformation to force regime change was the Reagan administration’s key strategy during the 1980s contra war; more than forty years on, US determination to impose its own form of ‘democracy’ continues unabated.

In February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio proclaimed Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela ‘enemies of humanity’ responsible for the region’s migration crisis.