Trump welcomes Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado in closed-door meeting

Venezuelan absorption person Maria Corina Machado has travelled to Washington, DC, to conscionable with United States President Donald Trump astatine the White House, pursuing the abduction of her governmental adversary, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Thursday’s gathering was the archetypal clip the 2 leaders encountered 1 different face-to-face.

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But the sojourn was an unusually subdued 1 for Trump, who usually welcomes overseas leaders to the Oval Office for a quality league with reporters.

This time, however, Trump kept his gathering with Machado private, distant from clicking camera shutters and shouted questions from reporters.

Trump has backed Maduro’s erstwhile vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, arsenic interim person of the South American country, contempt Machado’s claims that the absorption has a mandate to govern.

Rodriguez’s inaugural authorities of the national code arsenic president coincided with Machado’s accomplishment astatine the White House, a information that could person contributed to the low-key quality of the meeting.

“We are utilized to seeing the president ushering successful the cameras, making comments, talking away,” Al Jazeera analogous Mike Hanna reported arsenic evening fell successful the capital.

“But connected this peculiar occasion, [the meeting] was held down closed doors. In fact, we haven’t adjacent had a ceremonial readout from the White House of that gathering with Machado.”

Still, Machado struck an upbeat code arsenic she exited the White House and strolled onto Pennsylvania Avenue, wherever she was thronged by reporters and supporters seeking selfies.

She and Trump spent lone a fewer hours unneurotic successful the White House, arsenic they discussed Venezuela’s aboriginal implicit lunch.

Machado confirmed to the media that she followed done with her plans to springiness Trump her Nobel Peace Prize, an honour the US president has agelong coveted for himself.

“I presented the president of the United States the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize,” Machado told reporters.

As she offered Trump the prize, Machado said she recounted a humanities anecdote, astir an enactment betwixt Simon Bolivar – the Venezuelan subject serviceman who helped liberate overmuch of South America from assemblage regularisation – and the Marquis de Lafayette, a Revolutionary War leader successful the US.

“I told him this. Listen to this. Two 100 years ago, General Lafayette gave Simon Bolivar a medal with George Washington’s face,” Machado said. “Bolivar since past kept that medal for the remainder of his life.”

The Nobel Committee, however, has clarified that the prize is non-transferable and cannot beryllium shared.

Machado was announced arsenic the recipient of the prize successful October, successful designation of her efforts to beforehand Venezuelan democracy.

“I dedicate this prize to the suffering radical of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive enactment of our cause,” Machado wrote connected October 10. She secretly near Venezuela, wherever she had been surviving successful hiding, successful December to question to Norway and cod the medal.

‘Willing to serve’

Machado remains a fashionable fig wrong Venezuela’s absorption movement, which has faced oppression and unit nether Maduro’s presidency.

Human rights organisations person accused Maduro of systematically suppressing dissent and arresting absorption leaders.

As of January 11, the quality rights radical Foro Penal estimated determination were 804 governmental prisoners successful Venezuela, though immoderate estimates enactment their colonisation successful the thousands.

Machado was formerly a subordinate of Venezuela’s National Assembly, but Maduro’s authorities had her removed for allegedly conspiring against the presidency.

She was considered a starring campaigner for the 2024 statesmanlike race, and during the October 2023 absorption primary, she earned much than 92 percent support.

But successful January 2024, she was again disqualified from holding office, and erstwhile diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez yet ran connected behalf of the absorption coalition.

After polls closed successful July 2024, the authorities did not people the accustomed breakdown of the voting tallies, starring to wide outcry implicit a deficiency of transparency. The absorption obtained voting tallies that appeared to amusement Gonzalez winning successful a landslide, further fuelling the outrage.

But Maduro’s authorities backed his assertion to a 3rd six-year word arsenic president.

After the US subject abducted Maduro from Venezuela connected January 3, it transported him to the US to look charges of narcotics trafficking.

Machado has since appeared connected US tv to beforehand the Venezuelan opposition’s assertion that it has a “mandate” to instrumentality implicit the presidency aft Maduro’s removal.

“We person a president-elect who is Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, and we are acceptable and consenting to service our radical arsenic we person been mandated,” she told CBS News connected January 7.

Dismissing Machado?

But Trump has thrown his enactment down Rodriguez, whom helium has described arsenic cooperative.

“ She’s idiosyncratic that we’ve worked with precise well,” Trump said astatine a quality league connected Thursday. “I deliberation we’re getting on precise good with Venezuela.”

The US president has antecedently said that the US volition “run” Venezuela. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt besides told reporters that the Venezuelan government’s “decisions are going to proceed to beryllium dictated by the United States of America”.

Still, Rodriguez has denounced the January 3 onslaught connected Venezuela arsenic a usurpation of planetary law, and successful Thursday’s authorities of the national speech, she continued to explicit continued allegiance to “Chavismo”, the governmental question Maduro followed.

She has besides criticised US threats to her country’s sovereignty.

“We cognize the US is simply a lethal atomic power. We person seen their grounds successful past of humanity. We cognize and we are not acrophobic to look them diplomatically done governmental dialog arsenic due and resoluteness erstwhile and for each this humanities contradiction,” Rodriguez said connected Thursday.

“Brothers and sisters, deputies, careless of governmental affiliation, it doesn’t matter. We person to spell unneurotic arsenic Venezuelans to support our sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and besides support our dignity and our honour.”

She nevertheless indicated she planned to revisit Venezuela’s hydrocarbon instrumentality to let for greater overseas investment.

Renata Segura, the manager of the Latin America and Caribbean programme astatine the nonprofit International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that Rodriguez and her authorities person consistently maintained that Maduro remains the rightful person of Venezuela.

“We should not hide that Rodriguez and galore different members of the authorities successful Caracas person been precise adamant astir the information that the involution against Maduro was illegitimate. They’ve really demanded that helium beryllium liberated,” Segura said.

“So they haven’t done a 180-degree displacement successful the code of their declarations. But it’s not similar they person a batch of manoeuvring room. So they are truly trying to appease Trump astatine this moment.”

Still, Trump has agelong dismissed Machado’s prospects arsenic a replacement for Maduro oregon Rodriguez, saying connected January 3 that she “doesn’t person the enactment wrong oregon the respect wrong the country”.

Segura believes the Trump administration’s prime to cull Machado arsenic the person of Venezuela is understandable, successful the sanction of stability.

But, she added, Machado is the wide person of the opposition, and her conjugation truthful needs to beryllium portion of the country’s authorities moving forward.

“It would beryllium precise illegitimate if we conscionable had a speech betwixt the authorities of Chavismo, present without Maduro, and the Trump administration, without those radical that truly correspond the Venezuelan people’s feelings,” Segura said.