Machado Returns to Venezuela
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado returned home on Sunday after nearly a year abroad, ending several failed attempts to re-enter the country that strained her relationship with the Trump administration. Hours later, President Donald Trump signalled that Washington would keep backing the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez.
“I’m here. With you all,” the Nobel Peace Prize winner wrote on X. Images shared by her press team showed her at a church in the western state of Lara, where bystanders sang the national anthem and shouted “liberty!” as she left in an SUV, a Reuters witness said. Her team said she would travel to Caracas by road. It did not disclose how she re-entered the country, but two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters she flew by private plane from Panama to Colombia and then crossed into Venezuela overland.
At the White House, Trump said he knew nothing about her return and indicated the United States would continue to support Rodríguez, the former deputy to ousted President Nicolás Maduro. “She’s a very nice woman,” Trump said of Machado. “But we’re doing really well in Venezuela.” The Trump administration removed Maduro from power in January. Trump has repeatedly voiced support for Rodríguez, praised oil and business deals struck by US companies in Venezuela, and said in September that it was too soon to consider democratic elections.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a different emphasis in a statement. He said the conditions for Machado’s safe return were a direct result of US-supported reconciliation talks that have already freed hundreds of political prisoners and allowed hundreds of opposition figures to return from exile. Rubio said Washington expected all political actors to support the talks, which he called “the best chance Venezuela has had in thirty years” to achieve a free and fair election and an enduring democracy.
Those talks do not include Machado’s movement. A faction of the opposition and the interim government held their latest session this month, with the aim of remaking the top court and the electoral council before eventual elections. The Venezuelan communications ministry, which handles all press queries for the government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on her return.
David Smolansky, Machado’s top foreign affairs adviser, told Reuters she plans to meet victims of the deadly earthquakes that struck Venezuela in June, families of political prisoners, representatives of the international community and leaders of the democratic movement. “She will work proactively for a date for free and fair elections,” he said. In Barquisimeto, supporter Hernan Adames, 69, said: “Maria Corina Machado will achieve liberty and democracy in Venezuela.”
Her efforts to return had tested her ties with the administration, which she has courted as an ally. Reuters reported in June that US officials had asked her at least once to delay coming back. Maduro’s government had barred her from leaving the country, but she secretly left in late 2025 to collect her Nobel Peace Prize, after spending more than a year mostly in hiding.
The return comes as the country opens to foreign energy investment. International energy firms committed last month to expanding projects in Venezuela at a signing ceremony overseen by Rodríguez and US Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Machado has said only a “serious, democratic government” can provide the stability investors need.
Her movement, Vente Venezuela, launched an app on Saturday to collect voter-registration details from Venezuelans abroad. Built by 15 staff over 18 months, it is meant to feed data to a reformed electoral council so users can be added to voter rolls. Edmundo González, a former presidential candidate for her movement who lives in Spain, said on X that he would soon join her in Venezuela.
