Venezuelan opposition leader makes high-stakes visit to Washington

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado will meet U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, an encounter that has the potential to alter the future of the oil-rich South American country. For years, Machado has been the face of Venezuela’s pro-democracy opposition. Her political coalition won Venezuela’s last election in 2024 by a landslide, according to international observers . Machado herself had been barred from running for the presidency, so opposition candidate Edmundo González ran in her stead backed by Machado’s coalition. Despite independent analyses indicating González received about twice as many votes as President Nicolás Maduro, Maduro refused to concede. Facing arrest, both González and Machado eventually fled the country. Machado’s meeting at the White House comes less than three weeks after Maduro was seized by U.S. forces in Caracas. In her first interview following Maduro’s arrest, Machado told Fox News Hannity : “January 3rd will go down in history as the day justice defeated a tyranny. It’s a milestone...it’s not only huge for the Venezuelan people and our future; I think it’s a huge step for humanity, for freedom and human dignity.” “I’m planning to go back to Venezuela as soon as possible,” she said. News of Machado’s impending return was quietly celebrated by ordinary Venezuelans who spoke to Global News in Cúcuta, a city on the Colombian side of the Venezuelan border where large crowds of Venezuelans arrive daily to shop for food and other basic supplies, in order to circumvent Venezuela’s extraordinarily high prices and inflation. “Machado is our Iron Lady,” said a smiling Juan Antonio, who was in Cúcuta for a medical appointment (Colombia provides free health care to Venezuelans). “This is the change that we’ve been waiting for for a long time. And that lady, well, what she said and what she has done and what has been left to do, gives hope to Venezuela.” “She has the trust of the people. Every time that María Corina Machado goes out to the street, she can reunite the family of Venezuela,” said Juan Carlos Viloria, president of the NGO Global Alliance for Human Rights and a community leader in the Venezuelan diaspora. Viloria is one of an estimated nearly three million Venezuelans living in Colombia, following a mass exodus fuelled by Venezuela’s economic collapse and Maduro’s crackdown on human rights. “This is a historic moment, but also an extremely fragile one,” Viloria said. Get daily National news Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy . That fragility is expected to underpin Machado’s meeting with the U.S. president. At around the same time Machado meets with Trump, a Venezuelan government envoy is also expected to arrive in Washington to meet U.S. officials to discuss reopening the Venezuelan embassy. After Trump announced news of Maduro’s arrest on Jan.3, a reporter asked the U.S. president whether he would endorse Machado to lead the country. Trump’s answer surprised many. “I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the...

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