Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday in their first in-person discussion since Trump ordered a U.S. military operation that resulted in the capture of Venezuela’s former president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this month.
As she departed the White House after the meeting, Machado told reporters, “We are counting on President Trump for the freedom of Venezuela.”
She also made headlines by offering her 2025 Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump in recognition of what she described as his support for Venezuelan democracy. Although Trump accepted the medal as a symbolic gesture, the Nobel Institute has clarified that the award itself cannot be transferred.
The lunch-time encounter drew supporters to the White House gates, where Venezuelan expatriates waved flags and called for political change in their homeland. One supporter, Adriana Molinero, said she had lived in the United States for three years but came out to “be part of the reconstruction of my country,” noting friends who had died or been imprisoned for opposing Maduro’s regime.
Another supporter, Isabel Hayek, praised Machado as a true representative of Venezuelans’ aspirations and expressed gratitude to Trump and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio for backing their cause.
Despite her optimism, Trump struck a cautious tone about Machado’s political prospects. Before the meeting, he described her as “a very nice woman,” but said she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country” necessary to lead Venezuela.
The meeting comes amid dramatic developments following the U.S. military’s seizure of Maduro on January 3 and his subsequent transfer to New York on drug trafficking charges. In the aftermath, the United States has moved to assert control over Venezuelan oil resources. The Trump administration has reported the first sale of Venezuelan oil, valued at roughly USD 500 million, and plans to recruit American companies to help rehabilitate the nation’s struggling oil sector.
As questions linger over Venezuela’s political future, Machado continued her advocacy in Washington by meeting with members of the U.S. Senate following her White House visit. Meanwhile, Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, is serving as interim president and has been courted by Trump as part of broader diplomatic and economic discussions.
