María Corina Machado, the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, has emerged as a strong supporter of President Trump’s military buildup in the Caribbean, arguing, like Mr. Trump, that Venezuela’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, poses an enormous national security threat to the region.
“This is about saving lives,” she told Fox News last month after the United States began bombing suspected drug boats in the Caribbean, “not only Venezuelan lives, but also lives of American people, because as you have said, and we have heard, Maduro is the head of a narco-terrorist structure of cooperation.”
Ms. Machado, in statements to the press in recent weeks, has said that, should Mr. Maduro fall, her movement was prepared to take territorial and administrative control of Venezuela, and that they have a plan for the first 100 hours and the first 100 days of a transition.
She has also touted an economic plan to American and other investors, saying that a democratic Venezuela under her movement’s control has the potential to generate $1.7 trillion in wealth in 15 years, in part by privatizing the oil industry.
Since September, the Trump administration has been targeting what it calls drug boats in the Caribbean. But the size of the military buildup in the region, and Mr. Trump’s increasingly strident threats against Mr. Maduro, have led many in both countries to think that the Trump administration’s real objective is Mr. Maduro’s removal.
Ms. Machado party, Vente Venezuela, has been sharing online the threats made by Trump officials to alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers.
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The post Maria Corina Machado Has Supported Trump’s Military Actions in the Caribbean appeared first on New York Times.
