Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado traveled to Washington, DC to meet with US President Donald Trump at the White House, following the kidnapping of her political foe, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Thursday’s meeting was the first time that the two leaders had come face to face.
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But we met An unusually subdued one for Trump, who typically welcomes foreign leaders to the Oval Office for news conferences with reporters.
This time, however, Trump kept his meeting with Machado private, avoiding clicking camera shutters and fielding questions from reporters.
Despite Machado’s claim that the opposition has the right to govern, Trump has endorsed Maduro’s former vice president, Delsy Rodriguez, as the South American country’s interim leader.
The fact that Rodriguez’s inaugural State of the Union address as president coincided with Machado’s arrival at the White House may account for the low-key nature of the meeting.
“We’re used to seeing the president walking into the camera, making comments, talking away,” Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna said as dusk fell in the capital.
“But on this particular occasion, (the meeting) was held behind closed doors. In fact, we haven’t even received a formal readout from the White House of the meeting with Machado.”
Machado offered Nobel to Trump
Still, Machado struck an upbeat tone as he left the White House and strolled down Pennsylvania Avenue, where reporters and supporters snapped selfies.
She and Trump spent just a few hours together at the White House as they discussed the future of Venezuela over lunch.
Machado confirmed to the media that she plans to award Trump the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor the US president has long claimed for himself.
“I presented the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize, to the president of the United States,” Machado told reporters.
As she presented the award to Trump, Machado said she told a historical anecdote about the interaction between Simon Bolivar — the Venezuelan military officer who helped liberate South America from colonial rule — and American Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette.
“I told him this. Listen to this. Two hundred years ago General Lafayette gave Simon Bolivar a medal with George Washington’s face on it,” Machado said. “From then on Bolivar kept the medal for the rest of his life.”
The Nobel Committee, however, has clarified that the prize is non-transferable and non-shareable.
Machado was announced as the recipient of the prize in October in recognition of her efforts to advance Venezuela’s democracy.
“I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support,” Machado said. wrote On October 10. She secretly left Venezuela, where she had been hiding, in December to travel to Norway and collect the medal.
‘willing to serve’
Machado is a popular figure in Venezuela’s opposition movement, which has faced repression and violence under Maduro’s presidency.
Human rights organizations have accused Maduro of systematically suppressing dissent and arresting opposition leaders.
As of January 11, the human rights group Foro Penal estimated that there were 804 political prisoners in Venezuela, although some estimates put the number in the thousands.
Machado was previously a member of Venezuela’s National Assembly, but was fired by Maduro’s government, accusing her of plotting against the presidency.
She was considered the leading candidate for the 2024 presidential race, and during the October 2023 opposition primary, she received over 92 percent of support.
But in January 2024, she was disqualified from running for office again, and former diplomat Edmundo González eventually ran on behalf of the opposition coalition.
After polls closed in July 2024, the government did not publish the usual breakdown of voting stars, sparking widespread outrage over the lack of transparency. González appeared to win in a landslide, leading the opposition to increase its vote tally.
But Maduro’s government backed his bid for a third six-year term as president.
After the U.S. military kidnapped Maduro from Venezuela on January 3, he was taken to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges.
Machado has since appeared on US television to push Venezuela’s opposition’s claim that he is “ordered” to take over the presidency after Maduro’s ouster.
“We have a president-elect who is Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, and we are ready and willing to serve our people as commanded,” she told CBS News on January 7.
Machado dismissed?
But Trump has thrown his support behind Rodriguez, whom he has described as an ally.
“She’s someone we’ve worked very well with,” Trump said at a news conference Thursday. “I think we match up well with Venezuela.”
The US president has previously said that the US will “run” Venezuela. Last week, White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt also told reporters that the Venezuelan government’s “decisions are going to be made by the United States of America”.
Still, Rodriguez has condemned the Jan. 3 attack on Venezuela as a violation of international law, and in Thursday’s State-of-the-Union speech, she expressed continued loyalty to “Chavismo,” then Maduro’s political movement.
She has also criticized the US threats to her country’s sovereignty.
“We know that America is a lethal nuclear power. We have seen their record in the history of humanity. We know and we are not afraid to confront them diplomatically through political dialogue and resolve these historical contradictions once and for all,” Rodriguez said Thursday.
“Brothers and sisters, delegates, regardless of political affiliation, it doesn’t matter. We have to come together as Venezuela to defend our sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and defend our dignity and honor.”
Still, she signaled plans to revise Venezuela’s hydrocarbon law to allow more foreign investment.
Renata Segura, director of the Latin America and Caribbean program at the nonprofit International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that Rodriguez and her government have consistently maintained that Maduro is the rightful leader of Venezuela.
“We must not forget that Rodríguez and many other members of the government in Caracas are very adamant about the fact that the intervention against Maduro was illegal. They have actually called for his release,” Segura said.
“So they haven’t made a 180-degree shift in the tone of their announcements. But it’s not like they have a lot of room to maneuver. So they’re really trying to appease Trump at this point.”
Still, Trump has ruled out Machado as a replacement for Maduro or Rodriguez, saying on January 3 that she “has no support or respect in the country”.
Segura believes the Trump administration’s choice to reject Machado as Venezuela’s leader is understandable in the name of stability.
But, she added, Machado is the clear leader of the opposition and his coalition must therefore form part of the country’s government.
“Without people who represent the feelings of the Venezuelan people, now without Maduro and the Trump administration under the regime of Chavismo, it would be very illegal,” Segura said.