Earlier this month, Pope Leo publicly called on the international community to “respect the will of the Venezuelan people” and “protect the human and civil rights of all, ensuring a future of stability and harmony.”
By Piotr H. KOSICKI
“The hour of freedom has arrived,” opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado declared in X on January 3, while Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was in American custody en route to New York. This euphoria collapsed just hours later, when US President Donald Trump announced that his administration – instead of Venezuela’s democratic forces – would “lead the country until such time as we can make a safe, orderly and just transition.”
Across Venezuela and across the diaspora, joy has given way to fear and confusion, which Trump’s meeting with Machado on Thursday did little to dispel. What will become of Venezuelans’ belated hopes for freedom? And will the US move to restore the popular sovereignty that Maduro suppressed when he stole the 2024 presidential election from its rightful winner, Edmundo González? As Machado reminded Americans earlier this month, “we have an elected president and we are ready and willing to serve our people as we have been commanded.” A few days later, the Vatican offered its support, circulating photographs of Machado with Pope Leo XIV after an unannounced private audience.
But in the nearly two weeks since America’s intervention in Caracas, it has become clear that Trump has decided to suspend Venezuelan democracy in favor of regime continuity.
Venezuelans elected González president with about two-thirds of the vote, but Trump seems determined to ignore that mandate. Machado’s Nobel Peace Prize has not convinced Trump of her legitimacy. Instead, he seems to view it as a personal affront. As the Washington Post reported, “If she had refused it and said, ‘I can’t accept it because it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she would be president of Venezuela today.” The revelation 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 Journal, the 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 “the immediate reality” is that “the vast majority of the opposition is no longer present inside Venezuela.”
The administration, he added, is focused on “short-term things that need to be addressed immediately.” Rubio’s three-phase plan for Venezuela begins with a “stabilization” phase that is expected to last at least two to three months. During that period, the country will be governed by Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has not committed to moving forward with a democratic transition.
Rodríguez’s own political survival is far from certain, 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 CaracasChronicles rightly described it, is a “forbidden transition.” While Machado has said that her White House meeting with Trump went “very well,” there is little evidence that it changed the underlying dynamic. In an attempt to appease him, she even presented him with the Nobel Prize during her visit to the White House on January 15, a gesture that Trump eagerly accepted despite the Nobel committee making it clear that the prize cannot be transferred.
But no amount of flattery can solve 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 Venezuelan oil.
The Venezuelan opposition can no longer afford to play to Trump’s vanity. Machado won 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 say in the country’s political transition. As one commentator put it, the ability to organize nationwide protests is “the only instrument” Machado can use. The challenge is how to mobilize the resistance without provoking a massacre at the hands of the secret police and their surrogate paramilitary collectives. The only demand that could put pressure on Rodríguez and Rubio, while minimizing that risk, is the release of all political prisoners. Notably, this is the only issue on which Machado and the Trump administration have publicly united since Maduro’s departure.
Of course, a return to the streets carries considerable risks. But carefully planned, targeted, and coordinated protests could enable the opposition to regain influence, reclaim the political narrative, and secure the active support of world leaders beyond Trump. Ideologically, after all, Machado has much more in common with European leaders like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni than with the always transactional Trump. This proximity is no coincidence. As a devout Roman Catholic, Machado understands that Christian democracy has historically provided the moral and organizational foundation of Venezuela’s democratic civil society. As expected, the U.S.-born leader, whose values align most closely with her own, resides not in the White House but in the Vatican.
Earlier this month, Pope Leo publicly called on the international community to “respect the will of the Venezuelan people” and “protect the human and civil rights of all, ensuring a future of stability and harmony.” Machado and Trump, on the other hand, will never align on values, whether moral or political. Therefore, the Venezuelan opposition leader must 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 establish a meaningful role in shaping the country’s political future. (RFE)