Caracas, Venezuela – President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Thursday at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, whose political party is widely believed to have won the win. He won the 2024 elections It was rejected by then-President Nicolas Maduro before the United States He was captured in a daring military raid This month.
In less than two weeks American forces captured Maduro He and his wife are in a high-security compound in Caracas and taken to New York to stand trial Accusations of drug traffickingTrump will host Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, having previously done so She discredited the administration of Venezuela It raised doubts about his declared commitment to supporting democratic rule in the country.
“She’s a very nice woman,” Trump told Reuters in an interview about Machado. “I saw her on TV. I think we’ll just talk about the basics.”
The meeting comes at a time when Trump and his senior advisors have expressed their willingness to work with him Acting President Delcy RodriguezHe, who was Maduro’s vice president and others in the ousted leader’s inner circle, remains in charge of day-to-day government operations.
Rodriguez herself was adopted A less harsh stance towards Trump and his “America First” policies towards the Western Hemisphere, saying they plan to continue Release of prisoners detained under Maduro – a step reportedly taken at the request of the Trump administration. Venezuela Many Americans were released this week.
Trump said Wednesday that he had a “great conversation” with Rodriguez, their first since Maduro’s ouster.
“We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump told reporters. “And I think we get along very well with Venezuela.”
By endorsing Rodriguez, Trump marginalized Machado, who had long been the face of the resistance in Venezuela. She has sought to cultivate relationships with Trump and key advisers like him Secretary of State Marco Rubio Among the American right is in a political gamble to ally with the United States government.
Despite her alliance with Republicans, Trump was quick to ignore her after Maduro’s arrest. Just hours later, Trump said of Machado: “It’s going to be very difficult for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support inside the country or the respect inside the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t get the respect.”
Machado took a careful path to avoid offending Trump, especially afterward Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winnerWhich is what Trump covets. She has since thanked Trump and offered to share the award with him, a move that has been made Rejected by the Nobel Institute.
Machado’s whereabouts remain largely unknown since she went into hiding early last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. She reappeared briefly in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.
The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the NGO she co-founded, Sumati, promoted a referendum to remove then-President Hugo Chavez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Sumati executives were charged with conspiracy.
A year later, she again angered Chavez and his allies when she traveled to Washington to meet with President George W. Bush. A photo showing her shaking hands with Bush in the Oval Office is still fresh in collective memory. Chavez considered Bush an opponent.
Nearly two decades later, it mobilized millions of Venezuelans to reject Maduro, Chavez’s successor, for another term in the 2024 elections. But electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared him the winner despite credible evidence to the contrary. The ensuing anti-government protests ended in Brutal repression by state security forces.
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Janetsky reported from Mexico City. Associated Press Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.