{"id":740039,"date":"2026-07-03T02:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T02:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/740039\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T02:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T02:13:16","slug":"the-united-states-on-maria-corina-machados-attempts-to-return-to-venezuela-they-are-counterproductive-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/740039\/","title":{"rendered":"The United States on Mar\u00eda Corina Machado\u2019s attempts to return to Venezuela: They are \u2018counterproductive\u2019 | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friction between the Donald Trump administration and Mar\u00eda Corina Machado is becoming increasingly apparent. The Venezuelan opposition leader is intent on returning to her country \u2014 especially now after the earthquakes that have left nearly 2,300 dead<\/a> and 11,000 injured. The U.S. government has aligned itself with acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez and insists this is not the time. Attempts by the Nobel laureate to return now are \u201ccounterproductive,\u201d a State Department spokesperson told this newspaper.<\/p>\n

The opposition, meanwhile, insists that Machado must be allowed to enter her country. In a social media post, Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez, the opposition movement\u2019s presidential candidate in the July 2024 election, argued that \u201cthere are principles that are not open to negotiation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery Venezuelan\u2019s right to enter, remain in and return to their own country does not depend on authorization from those in power,\u201d he said, in an apparent reference to the ban that Machado says Caracas has imposed on her return. Machado, he added, \u201chas the right to enter Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hay principios que no admiten negociaci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n

El derecho de todo venezolano a entrar, permanecer y regresar a su propio pa\u00eds no depende de una autorizaci\u00f3n del poder. Es un derecho reconocido por la Constituci\u00f3n y por el derecho internacional de los derechos humanos.\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Edmundo Gonz\u00e1lez (@EdmundoGU) July 2, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Machado had attempted to return to Venezuela the previous weekend. Her plan was to travel first through the island of Cura\u00e7ao, essentially retracing the route she took in reverse when she left Venezuela last November on her way to Oslo to receive her Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>. But the private plane she was travelling on was ordered to turn back while still in U.S. airspace.<\/p>\n

\u201cDutch authorities, who handle Cura\u00e7ao\u2019s foreign affairs, initially believed the U.S. backed her trip but withdrew permission for the plane to land\u201d after Washington made clear it did not back it, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing \u201cpeople familiar with the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that failed attempt, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio relayed the Trump administration\u2019s view to Machado: that while they would not prevent her return, it was not the moment to try, since all attention and resources needed to be dedicated to rescue efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration is focused exclusively on continuing our efforts to respond to the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela,\u201d a State Department spokesperson said Thursday about Machado\u2019s attempts to return. \u201cAdding sensitive political issues to this situation at this time is counterproductive to our relief efforts following this tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the U.S. position, Machado decided to try again. This time she flew from Panama last Sunday. There, Copa Airlines refused to let her board, fearing potential reprisals from the Venezuelan government. From the Central American country, the Nobel laureate posted a video on social media in which she expressed her determination to return to Venezuela. She said she wanted \u201cto face this catastrophe together as a united family would when one of its members suffers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery soon I will be back in Venezuela, alongside the Venezuelan people,\u201d she said, and added that she could not reach her country because the government in Caracas had closed airspace to prevent her entry.<\/p>\n

Since the U.S. military operation that captured Nicol\u00e1s Maduro on January 3, Machado has spoken often of her desire to return to Venezuela as soon as possible, both in public statements and in meetings with a range of figures in the United States: from President Donald Trump, to whom she gave her Nobel medal in January<\/a>, to lawmakers of both parties, including Rubio and other administration officials. But the response has consistently been the same: it is not yet the right time; the situation is not sufficiently stable. \u201cHer timetable is not the administration\u2019s timetable,\u201d admit members of Congress who support the opposition leader.<\/p>\n

The White House has chosen to back Delcy Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, Maduro\u2019s former vice president, despite the unpopularity of the Chavista regime and the criticism Caracas has faced over its handling of the disaster response. The U.S. administration believes that supporting the former vice president is, for now, the best way to preserve stability in Venezuela. Trump has publicly said that, at present, Machado does not have enough domestic support to lead the country in this phase, while he has praised Rodr\u00edguez for following Washington\u2019s instructions.<\/p>\n

The U.S. government says it supports holding elections in the South American country, but insists that political and economic stability must be restored first so that the vote can be conducted with adequate guarantees.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of last week\u2019s earthquakes, Trump promised swift and substantial assistance to Venezuela. Washington has since announced $300 million in humanitarian aid \u2014 double the amount initially pledged \u2014 deployed search-and-rescue teams with highly trained dogs, and established a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), among other measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is, by really any estimate, at this point the largest response to any natural disaster the United States has mounted in this century in terms of personnel on the ground, money out the door [and] speed,\u201d said Jeremy Lewin<\/a> of the State Department\u2019s Office of Humanitarian Assistance. That office has taken over functions previously carried out by the U.S. development agency, USAID, which the Trump administration dismantled last year.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, John Barrett,<\/a> charg\u00e9 d\u2019affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, defended the Venezuelan government\u2019s handling of the disaster, saying that \u201clocal authorities have fully complied with our requests and have accelerated this massive humanitarian response.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friction between the Donald Trump administration and Mar\u00eda Corina Machado is becoming increasingly apparent. The Venezuelan opposition leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,188167,12,83353,643,76324,3,21,19,22,20,25,24,18232],"class_list":["post-740039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-delcy-rodriguez","tag-donald-trump","tag-edmundo-gonzalez-urrutia","tag-marco-rubio","tag-maria-corina-machado","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}