Machado Heads to the White House

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Carole Walker for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Carole Walker: 0:01

Carole Walker on Times Radio. Now, the White House has confirmed that Venezuela's opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Maria Corina Machado, will meet President Trump on Thursday. The visit to the White House will come just weeks after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was seized in Caracas by US forces. But Trump declined to endorse Machado, whose movement had claimed victory in 2024's widely contested elections. I can speak now to the Latin America correspondent Jon Bonfiglio. Good evening to you, Jon. This is an interesting move and a bit of a change of heart from the US President, who had previously said that he didn't actually think that Machado had much support within Venezuela.

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:55

Ah, yes, but you know, we can certainly expect the ill-fated Nobel Peace Prize to be part of this of the potential trade-off for the meeting. Undoubtedly it will rear its head again. But of course, what's at stake is the question of Trump's patronage of Venezuela's political future. Maria Corina Machado is going to try to encourage him to see that the US will find more via more viable commercial opportunities in the country under an opposition-led administration, which I think, truth be told, is going to be complex to achieve given how the White House seems to think it can achieve everything it wants in the country through threats and coercion. It's difficult to see what cards Machado has beyond the Peace Prize, which she's been told under no uncertain terms by the Nobel Committee, she cannot hand on to uh to anybody else. But she is a canny political operator. And I think we can see her visit to the Pope today within that frame in which she's trying to gather alternative strength before the meeting on Thursday.

Carole Walker: 1:52

Um yeah, it's fascinating that. I mean, you mentioned the Peace Prize. I mean, just to be clear, what happened is that um that Maria Corina Machado uh won the Nobel Peace Prize, um, but then she she did suggest she could give it to President Trump, although the committee um said that it couldn't actually be transferred to somebody else.

Jon Bonfiglio: 2:15

Yeah, she dedicated it to him immediately in the in the first instance, knowing, because of course he wasn't shy about saying how much he deserved it, given the fact that he'd ended uh you know X number of wars, but then that didn't seem to achieve that much traction. So in the last week or so after the snub, she's um she's actually offered to to give it to him. She's gone on US media and said that she would happily give it to him. But then, of course, uh the the Nobel uh prize committee came out and said that um it was permanent and non-transferable.

Carole Walker: 2:45

What exactly is happening inside Venezuela? Because of course we saw that hugely controversial US operation that seized Nicolas Maduro, uh he's appeared before a court in New York. Um, but I mean his deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, has basically taken his place, and it seems as though the whole of the rest of the regime is just continuing.

Jon Bonfiglio: 3:09

Yeah, that's basically right. I mean, there is something of a dual reality because um, you know, on the one hand, nothing at all has changed except for the operation to uh to remove Maduro. Um uh on the one hand, we've um we've seen the release of political prisoners lauded by Trump, although it's actually estimated that these are only about 1% of those political prisoners held. And in direct contrast to this, actually, the Venezuelan army and in particular local armed militias have been patrolling the capital, Caracas, and other uh major cities. So it's this sort of um uh you know what you show with one hand and remove with with the other. Um fundamentally, what the US wants is to be able to access Venezuelan uh goods, markets, and the like, and that's the that's the primary point of interest. The rest actually isn't isn't that that crucial. And so it may seem as though it's a difficult sort of um reality for Delcy Rodriguez to um to manage, but actually, as long as she can um she's happy to sell her principles of opening up Venezuela to speculation, then I think it's something she can she can achieve.

Carole Walker: 4:12

Yeah, and I mean we've already had President Trump, haven't we, um calling in um US oil executives and telling them to get stuck ahead and get involved in the country. But what what then do you think we should expect from um this meeting later this week um between Machado uh and President Trump?

Jon Bonfiglio: 4:32

It's difficult to know. Um Maria Corina Machado has been, she's been um her primary strategy has been to be um incredibly sort of fawning towards um Donald Trump um uh sort of scratch his itch, his ego itch in in that regard. If if you like, she's not sort of come on heavy in any way at all. But the again, this visit to the Pope today I think is curious. The visit to Trump has been heavily trailed in the international media, but the visit to the to to Pope Leo today in the Vatican came out of absolutely nowhere. And it seems as though um and and Pope Leo in his office at the Vatican didn't release any information after the visit, but uh markedly, Marie Corina Machado did and said that she had asked the Pope to help with her with a transition. And I think two interesting things come out of this. On the one hand, it seems as though Machado is sort of playing into um uh uh an area of strength for her, which is sort of a moral authority. And the other thing is it's interesting that she's chosen Pope Leo, who's a strident critic of Trump and Trump's policies, especially vis-a-vis, not just Venezuela and but migrants as well, because his power, his um his constituency, if you like, is not something he can readily attack. It's not a political mandate that he has, and it's difficult to know, or it's difficult, I think, for Trump to sort of address or push back against in the way that he could so easily do against, say, other national or political leaders.

Carole Walker: 5:58

And um, just briefly, if you can, Jon, um, any sign of those US oil companies uh wanting to risk investment in Venezuela when there's clearly so much uncertainty?

Jon Bonfiglio: 6:11

It was a curious meeting, wasn't it? And since then, I mean, a number of uh uh of the oil executives sort of suggested, which you kind of would expect, that they needed additional funding, external funding, state funding, and guarantees in order to reinvest in Venezuela. Exxon Mobil, in particular, the CEO of ExxonMobil, said that uh Venezuela was uninvestable, and that certainly caught Trump's eye. He said that they were the Exxon is too cute after that comment uh last week, and he threatened to uh to sideline them. A couple of other things have happened as well. I mean, actually, across the water in Cuba, President Miguel Diaz Canel uh today has poked and said that the US has no moral authority um to threaten Cuba. And Trump has posted an image of himself on social media in which he is referred to as the acting president of Venezuela as of January 2026.

Carole Walker: 7:03

We'll have to leave it there. Jon Bonfiglio, great to have you with us. Thank you so much for joining us tonight here on Times Radio.