The return of Venezuela’s top opposition leader, María Corina Machado, after nearly a year in exile is a significant turning point in the Trump administration’s efforts to micromanage the politics of the oil-rich country.
Until Ms. Machado surfaced over the weekend before adulating crowds, Trump officials had prioritized an alignment with her rival, Delcy Rodríguez, a figure from Venezuela’s authoritarian government chosen by the U.S. administration as the country’s leader.
But Ms. Machado’s sudden return is now shifting the political calculus of everything from the Trump administration’s pursuit of opaque oil deals in Venezuela to demands that the U.S. government accelerate a glacially paced transition to democracy.
“Delcy derives her legitimacy solely from the White House, whereas Maria Corina derives hers from the Venezuelan people,” said James B. Story, the U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2018 to 2023.
Now that Ms. Machado is back on the ground, pressure is building to speed up what Mr. Story called the Venezuelan government’s “milquetoast” approach for gradually easing authoritarian rule, without a detailed plan for presidential elections.
For months, Trump administration officials had viewed a return by Ms. Machado as potentially disruptive and had intervened earlier to keep that from happening, U.S. officials said. But the United States did not try to block her latest effort, nor did it help.
A spokesman for Ms. Machado said her return was carried out strictly by Venezuelans from the opposition leader’s team.
Ms. Machado’s capacity for energizing Venezuela’s opposition was vividly on display on Sunday as thousands of her followers lined up to cheer her motorcade as it made its way to the capital, Caracas.
Karla Gómez, 54, a registered nurse who was among the throngs of supporters, said she was so overcome with emotion that she cried when she found out Ms. Machado had returned.
“I know it won’t be easy because we’re living under a regime,” said Ms. Gómez, referring to Venezuela’s government, which stifled dissent after losing a 2024 election. “But I know she’ll bring about the changes we desperately need.”
Reflecting the Venezuelan government’s unease with this turn of events, Ms. Rodríguez, the interim president, said on Monday that Ms. Machado had staged a “show” to highlight her return and could have been simply been welcomed at an airport like other returning exiles.
Ms. Rodríguez, who has been praised repeatedly by President Trump, also declined to say whether she would welcome Ms. Machado in talks aimed at renewing democratic institutions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday told reporters in Washington that he expected Ms. Rodríguez and her government to comply with the road map that the United States is presenting for what he and his aides call a gradual political transition.
“What if they just try to wait us out for two years?” he said, an apparent reference to the end of Mr. Trump’s term. “That’s not going to happen. I mean, we have timelines that are agreed to, and so far they’ve met every one of those timelines.”
He added that the United States has kept many economic sanctions on Venezuela — though it issues licenses to companies as exceptions to those — and that the sanctions give the Trump administration “significant influence” over the direction of the ongoing political talks.
That dialogue, intended to put in place a framework for elections, is led on the opposition side by Dinorah Figuera, a member of the legislature elected in 2015 that is formally recognized by the United States. The government side is led by Jorge Rodríguez, the brother of Ms. Rodríguez and head of the current legislature.
Ms. Machado has not been part of the talks, and it is unclear what role she might play.
The fourth round of talks is scheduled for mid-November, and the planning for that could prove to be a test of how Ms. Machado works with other opposition leaders and whether she sees the dialogue as legitimate.
The State Department under Mr. Rubio, who is essentially running Venezuela, envisions two major steps taking place before fair elections can occur. First, a committee of experts must name new members to the Supreme Court, which can wield power over elections. Second, a separate committee must name new members of the National Electoral Council, which administers elections.
The new Supreme Court members could be in place by the end of this year, and the new electoral council could soon follow, a senior State Department official said on Monday. After that, he said, Ms. Rodríguez would declare a permanent vacancy in the presidency, since the country’s last official leader — Nicolás Maduro — is in an American prison, and that would by law trigger a six-month deadline for holding elections.
Ms. Machado has called for elections by next July.
Mr. Trump has lauded Ms. Rodríguez and said Venezuela is not ready for elections. He rarely talks about democracy, openly admires autocrats and tried to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
But Mr. Rubio insisted the administration supports real democracy in Venezuela: “Our goal here is to have an election that, when it happens, the losing side will say it was a fair election. We just lost. We’ll go into opposition, and when you guys screw up the country, we’ll run in four years and retake power.”
Mr. Rubio, who is also Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, said the “best case scenario” is he stays in his job until the end of the administration and sees Venezuela become a democracy “well in advance” of leaving his position or positions.
Ms. Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025 and left Venezuela in December to receive the prize in Norway. A month later, U.S. forces overthrew Mr. Maduro, the country’s longtime leader, in a lethal nighttime assault.
But instead of siding with Ms. Machado, who mobilized broad support in her 2024 bid for the presidency, the Trump administration settled on Ms. Rodríguez, who pivoted overnight from unelected adversary to subserviently working with U.S. officials.
Ms. Machado then found herself shut out from negotiations purportedly aimed at setting the stage for a democratic transition. As Ms. Machado remained outside Venezuela, Trump officials focused on deals to revive the country’s oil industry.
One of those deals involves a partnership to produce oil between the U.S. government and Alejandro Betancourt, a Venezuelan businessman who has faced money laundering investigations.
Reflecting unease in Venezuela over the deal, Ms. Machado, in an interview this month with The New York Times, criticized Mr. Betancourt.
Mr. Betancourt has rejected Ms. Machado’s criticism, and his representatives have repeatedly said that he has not been charged with any crimes.
Asked on Monday about Ms. Machado’s criticisms, Mr. Rubio defended the oil deal with Mr. Betancourt. “It now allows the company that we partnered with to go out and make massive capital investments to increase the productive capacity,” he said.
“As far as her criticism of the deal, I mean, that’s fine, I mean, that’s her opinion on it,” he added. “This is a contract that we think is a very solid contract.”
One of Ms. Machado’s immediate challenges will involve fending off attacks from the right. Valentina Gómez, a MAGA firebrand who has lost elections in Missouri and Texas, recently surfaced in Venezuela to express support for Mr. Betancourt’s oil company while excoriating Ms. Machado.
With the U.S. government currently exerting extraordinary control over Venezuela’s oil exports and its government, Ms. Machado is aware that she must tread carefully to avoid offending the Trump administration while also asserting her own leadership.
Rafael Uzcátegui, director of the Peace Laboratory, a Caracas human rights group, argued on social media that Ms. Machado’s presence in the country could open the way for Venezuelans who have avoided publicly criticizing the Trump-Delcy alignment to start doing so.
“Her return creates a credible opening to challenge U.S. tutelage,” Mr. Uzcátegui said.
Anatoly Kurmanaev and María Victoria Fermín contributed reporting from Caracas, Venezuela.
The post Venezuelan Opposition Leader’s Return Tests Limits of U.S. Sway appeared first on New York Times.
