The president has said he thinks Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s days leading the socialist country are numbered.
MIAMI — Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado on Wednesday praised President Donald Trump’s aggressive approach to the country as “absolutely correct,” as the White House weighs further military action on the socialist country.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is in hiding and made her comments over video at the America Business Forum in downtown Miami, said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was “not a legitimate head of state” and that Trump’s actions would “protect millions of lives of Latin American citizens and certainly Venezuelan citizens.”
Calling Maduro “the head of this narco-terror structure that has declared war on the Venezuelan people and to democratic nations in the region,” Machado said criminal structures sustained the regime with the trafficking of drugs, gold, weapons and people.
“You need to cut those cash flows,” she said. “Maduro started this war, and President Trump is ending that war.”
Machado’s comments come as the administration has already struck more than a dozen Venezuelan vessels it alleged were carrying drugs, killing more than 60 people. The administration also doubled the bounty for Maduro’s capture to $50 million this year, following charges of drug conspiracy in 2020, and added Venezuela to its drug-transit list.
Machado did not mention reports that Trump is additionally weighing military action in Venezuela, including actions that could try to oust Maduro from power. Trump was asked on CBS “60 Minutes” on Sunday whether Maduro’s days in office were numbered, and said, “I think so, yeah.” He also said “I doubt it” when asked whether the U.S. was going to war with Venezuela.
Wednesday’s event, hosted at the Kaseya Center and moderated by Miami’s outgoing mayor, Francis Suarez, will also include a speech from Trump on Wednesday afternoon.
Despite Machado’s efforts that led to a presidential election in Venezuela in 2024, Maduro remained in power even as multiple outside analyses determined the results were fraudulent.
Machado, a conservative former member of the national assembly, said her Nobel prize was a “recognition of the will of our people” who “came together to fight the worst criminal regime.” She praised Trump’s leadership on the issue, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying world leaders who supported her efforts “understand this is a universal cause.” She added that she hoped Venezuela’s success would lead to freedom for Cuba and Nicaragua, and predicted if Venezuela became a democracy then the country could open investment on oil, gas, mining and gold.
Machado also said she felt especially warmly toward Florida, given its 210,000 residents of Venezuelan descent. But she did not mention attempts by the Trump administration to end temporary protected status for Venezuelans, which allows immigrants from countries in crisis to work and live in the U.S.
“History will always remember what you have done as a community, as a nation, for freedom and justice around the world,” Machado said.