MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Machado meets Rubio in Washington, says her return to Venezuela is near

“Excellent meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Thank you for your commitment to democracy, freedom, and the well-being of Venezuelans,” Machado wrote on her Instagram account

Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado met Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the State Department in Washington. It was the second meeting between the two since the U.S. military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on January 3.

“Excellent meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Thank you for your commitment to democracy, freedom, and the well-being of Venezuelans,” Machado wrote on her Instagram account alongside a photograph of the encounter. “The day when we will reunite our families in Venezuela is near! We are making progress!” she added.

In a subsequent message released through her party Vente Venezuela, Machado said she had thanked Rubio for “the opportunity to discuss and advance the consolidation of a transition to freedom in Venezuela, leading to an election that guarantees the full exercise of our rights.” Sources close to the opposition leader cited by the outlet Efecto Cocuyo said the conversation covered the progress of the democratic transition, Machado's potential safe return along with other exiles, and international support for calling free elections.

The closed-door meeting, held without press access, took place one day after the United States officially reopened its embassy in Caracas. The two countries had severed diplomatic ties in 2019, but the Trump administration and the government of President Delcy Rodríguez reestablished relations in early March, following Maduro's ouster.

The State Department did not issue any statement on the meeting's content.

Machado left Venezuela last December after more than a year in hiding to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. She has since remained in Washington, where she also met in February with President Donald Trump, to whom she presented the Nobel medal. On Saturday, Vente Venezuela reiterated that the opposition leader would return to her country “in the coming days,” without specifying a date.

The Trump administration, however, has ruled out Machado as the leader of the transition. Washington recognized Rodríguez — who served as Maduro's vice president — as interim head of state and has indicated that phases of normalization and stabilization will be needed before elections can take place. The United States exercises what it has described as a tutelage over the Venezuelan government, which has agreed to open the country's oil and mining sectors to American companies.

Last week, a Venezuelan delegation led by chargé d'affaires Félix Plasencia visited Washington to meet with Republican officials and take control of the Venezuelan embassy, which had been under State Department custody since 2023. From Caracas, Rodríguez participated Friday via videoconference in a business forum in Miami, where she stressed the need to provide legal certainty to investors “regardless of political changes.”