Xiomara Castro has been sworn in as Honduras' first female president, amid a political crisis that threatens her plans for the impoverished nation.
Speaking at the ceremony, the leftist leader said she was taking the lead of a "broken" country but vowed to pursue social justice and transparency.
Ms Castro, 62, has promised to tackle powerful drug trafficking gangs and liberalise strict abortion laws.
Thousands of people joined the inauguration ceremony at the national stadium in the capital, Tegucigalpa.
"The economic catastrophe that I'm inheriting is unparalleled in the history of our country," she said in her speech, highlighting the need to restructure the national debt.
But she promised: "My government will not continue the maelstrom of looting that has condemned generations of young people to pay the debt they incurred behind their back."
US Vice-President Kamala Harris was among the foreign officials who attended the inauguration - receiving a huge wave of applause from the gathered crowd.
The Biden administration hopes Ms Castro will fight corruption, poverty and violence, long-standing problems that have helped fuel illegal immigration from the Central American country to the US.
Taiwanese Vice-President William Lai was also at the ceremony, as Honduras is one of the few countries in the world to have diplomatic ties with Taipei.
