from dedicating the Nobel Peace Prize to her to being relegated as leader of the transition in Venezuela

“It would be very difficult. He does not have the support or respect within the country,” Trump insisted during the press conference held this Saturday at his personal residence in Mar-a-Lago, after the one known as Operation Absolute Resolve, with which the United States has captured Nicolás Maduro.

Trump thus casts doubt on the future presidency of María Corina Machado, after a few months of good relations between both political figures. An enigma that seems to have caught even Machado’s own team by surprise, who a few hours before the US president’s words had shown himself “willing and ready” to take power in Venezuela.

The United States now says it can count on Delcy Rodríguez, vice president of Venezuela, so that there is a transition between Maduro and the future of the country, all under the leadership of Washington and removing María Corina Machado from the equation. The question is why.

The public contacts that have been known between Machado and Trump have been scarce in recent years. It was not until October 2025, after it was announced that the Venezuelan opposition leader had won the Nobel Peace Prize, when the first contact between the two became known.

It was a phone call, as Donald Trump explained. He himself told the press that the Venezuelan had told him that she accepted the award “in her honor.” Machado, a day later, confirmed that conversation and insisted on thanking Trump for what the president did for “peace in the world.”

In his statements after the Nobel Prize, he even dedicated the award to him. “To the people who suffer in Venezuela and to President Donald Trump for his decisive support for our cause,” he stressed.

After that, María Corina Machado – already from Oslo – has continued to support Trump in his decisions prior to Maduro’s capture. Celebrated the presence of 20% of the United States naval force off the Venezuelan coast as a necessary step to corner Chavismo. “We are on the threshold of a new era,” he insisted.

In fact, one of the last interviews granted by the Venezuelan opposition leader was with the son of the president of the United States, Donald Trump Jr., on his podcast Triggered.

“Maduro has to understand that Trump is serious (…). Venezuela will be the brightest investment opportunity for Americans. For me, this—the revocation of oil concessions—is proof that President Trump is with Venezuela, with Venezuelans and with security,” he explained.

Now, those praises have turned to silence. Not a single word has been heard from María Corina Machado’s entourage in response to President Trump’s rudeness.

Trump himself, in his appearance from Florida, downplayed the role of the opposition leader by acknowledging that he had not contacted her before the attack on Caracas and that he did not know her current location.

It should be remembered that, after the presidential elections in Venezuela in 2024, Trump did not recognize Edmundo González Urrutia as a legitimate and democratically elected president, as international authorities such as the White House—then under the Biden administration—or the European Parliament, inter alia.

At the time, Trump was a presidential candidate and was focused on his internal campaign. The only statements he made in this regard, after questions from journalists, were directed at Maduro, whom he called a “dictator”, but without recognizing the opposition as the winner of the elections.

That position, then ambiguous, contrasts with the current scenario. With his words, Trump has left María Corina Machado practically outside the immediate board designed by Washington for Venezuela and has opened a new scenario of uncertainty about the opposition leadership after the fall of Maduro.