 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, advised by John Negroponte, the former Reagan-era Ambassador to Honduras implicated in the Iran–Contra affair, refrained from expressing support.She has since explained that the US would have had to cut aid if it called Zelaya's ouster a military coup, although the US has a record of ignoring these events when it chooses.Zelaya had expressed an interest in Hugo Chávez' Bolivarian Alliance for Peoples of our America (ALBA), and had actually joined in 2008.