Venezuela’s Machado lauds Trump for ‘freedom’, urges 2027 elections
Nobel winner returns to Venezuela from exile, urging elections and criticising a controversial US oil deal with Caracas.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has thanked US President Donald Trump’s administration for opening the “floodgate to freedom” by abducting President Nicolas Maduro in January.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate on Thursday also called for elections to be held in Venezuela next year, in her first public remarks since returning from more than 10 months in exile.
“Thanks to their vision, their courage, and their action on January 3, the floodgate to freedom has been opened,” Machado told a news conference in Caracas, naming Trump, his administration and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Since Maduro’s abduction in January, the country has been ruled by his former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez.