Nicolás Maduro’s removal initially raised hopes that Venezuelans would finally regain control over their political future. Instead, US President Donald Trump has chosen to preserve the Chavista power structure, sidelining pro-democracy advocates and leaving opposition leader María Corina Machado with little influence.
COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND – “The hour of freedom has arrived,” opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado proclaimed on X on January 3 as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro sat in US custody en route to New York. That euphoria collapsed mere hours later, when US President Donald Trump announced that his administration – rather than Venezuela’s democratic forces – would “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” Across Venezuela and throughout the diaspora, jubilation gave way to fear and confusion, which Trump’s meeting with Machado on Thursday has done little to dispel.
What will become of Venezuelans’ long-delayed hopes for liberty? And will the US move to restore the popular sovereignty that Maduro had crushed when he stole the 2024 presidential election from its rightful winner, Edmundo González?
As Machado reminded Americans earlier this month, “We have a president-elect, and we are ready and willing to serve our people as we have been mandated.” Days later, the Vatican offered its support, circulating photographs of Machado alongside Pope Leo XIV following a previously unannounced private audience.
But in the nearly two weeks since America’s incursion into Caracas, it has become clear that Trump has made up his mind to put Venezuelan democracy on hold in favor of regime continuity. Venezuelans elected González president with an estimated two-thirds of the votebut Trump seems determined to ignore that mandate.
Not even Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize has convinced Trump of her legitimacy. Instead, he appears to regard it as a personal affront. As the Washington Post reported“If she had turned it down and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela today.” This account fueled speculation that the United States pushed Machado into exile – a move she had long resisted – to ensure that she would not be in a position to complicate Maduro’s removal.
According to the Wall Street Journalthe CIA has concluded that the Venezuelan opposition would be unlikely to withstand resistance from the Chavista security and defense establishment. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has echoed this assessment, saying that while Machado is “fantastic,” the “immediate reality” is that “the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside of Venezuela.” The administration, he added, is focused on “short-term things that have to be addressed right away.”
Rubio’s three-stage plan for Venezuela begins with a “stabilization” phase expected to last at least two to three months. During that period, the country is to be governed by Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has made no commitment to advance a democratic transition. Rodríguez’s own political survival is far from assured, given the power wielded by Maduro’s secret police chief, Diosdado Cabello, and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, as well as the inherent fragility of her position as Trump’s puppet.
The result, as the Caracas Chronicles has aptly described it, is an “arrested transition.” While Machado has said that her White House meeting with Trump went “great,” there is little evidence that it altered the underlying dynamic. In an effort to placate him, she even gave him her Nobel Prize during her January 15 White House visit, a gesture Trump greedily accepted despite the Nobel committee making it clear that the prize cannot be transferred. But no amount of flattery can resolve the fundamental problem: Trump does not support Machado because she is ultimately committed to the popular sovereignty of her fellow citizens, not to Trump’s plans for Venezuela’s oil.
The Venezuelan opposition can no longer afford to play to Trump’s vanity. Machado earned the Nobel Peace Prize by mobilizing Venezuelans at home and abroad over the past two years, and she must do so again if the opposition is to have any voice in the country’s political transition. As one commentator put itthe ability to organize nationwide protests is the “only instrument” Machado can wield.
The challenge is how to mobilize resistance without provoking a bloodbath at the hands of the secret police and their deputized paramilitary collectives. The one demand that can exert pressure on both Rodríguez and Rubio while minimizing this risk is the release of all political prisoners. Notably, that is the only issue on which Machado and the Trump administration have publicly converged since Maduro’s removal.
To be sure, a return to the streets carries significant risks. But carefully timed, targeted, and coordinated protests could enable the opposition to regain leverage, reclaim the political narrative, and secure the active support of world leaders beyond Trump. Ideologically, after all, Machado has far more in common with European leaders like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni than with the ever-transactional Trump.
That affinity is not incidental. As a devout Roman Catholic, Machado understands that Christian democracy has historically provided the moral and organizational foundation of Venezuela’s democratic civil society. Unsurprisingly, the US-born leader whose values most closely align with hers does not reside in the White House, but in the Vatican. Earlier this month, Pope Leo publicly urged the international community to “respect the will of the Venezuelan people” and to “safeguard the human and civil rights of all, ensuring a future of stability and concord.”
Machado and Trump, by contrast, will never align on values, whether moral or political. The Venezuelan opposition leader must therefore return to the strategy that gave her international credibility in the first place. Time is running out for Venezuela’s pro-democracy forces to reassert themselves and carve out a meaningful role in shaping the country’s political future.
