Published 03/01/2026 19:31 | Edited 01/05/2026 14:55
October 2025. María Corina Machado – the main internal opponent of Nicolás Maduro’s government – takes advantage of the spotlight of her Nobel Peace Prize to make another nod to the President of the United States, Donald Trump: “I dedicate this award to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his determined support for our cause!”.
On the same day, without even remembering the name of the Venezuelan coup leader, the head of the White House declared in a press conference: “The person who received the Nobel Prize today called me and told me: ‘I’m accepting this in your honor, because you really deserved it’. It was very kind of her.”
January 2026. Just 54 days after exchanging affection, Trump brought Corina back to reality. Hours after his government illegally bombed Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro, the American president made it clear that it will be the White House that will call the shots in a possible post-Bolivarian regime.
“I think it will be very difficult for her to be the leader. She doesn’t have the support or respect in the country”, said Trump during a press conference held this Saturday (3). “We will govern the country until an adequate transition can occur”, added the North American president.
The interview served to expose the “Trump way” of being. His administration is no different from the imperialist tradition of the United States – but it does so with unusual sincerity.
Firstly, Trump did not give a deadline for a possible Venezuelan recolonization. “We will govern the country until a safe, appropriate and judicious transition can be achieved. We do not want to allow someone else to take control and the situation go back to the way it has been for so many years. Therefore, we will govern the country until a safe, appropriate and judicious transition can occur.”
All that was left to do was add for which country, exactly, this transition should be “safe, adequate and judicious”. As if it wasn’t clear, Trump insisted: “We are there now and we will remain there until the proper transition can occur.” The Venezuelan government, through its vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, reacted: “We will never be a colony of another country”.
Trump emphasized, in another part of his press conference, that democracy was not the priority of the invasion. Not even the fight against drug trafficking – a pretext that the White House had been touting in recent months to justify the change in the regime. Even before being questioned by reporters, the US president admitted that greed for Venezuelan oil reserves was at the root of the military offensive.
“As everyone knows, the oil sector in Venezuela was a total failure for a long period of time. They were producing almost nothing compared to what they could be producing,” Trump said. “We are going to take our big oil companies – the biggest in the world – to invest billions of dollars, repair the destroyed infrastructure and generate wealth for the country again.” But the idea is to make who “great again” – Venezuela or the United States?
When a reporter asked him if the United States Armed Forces would land in the United States, Trump reinforced the message: “We’re going to have a presence in Venezuela when it comes to oil, because we need to bring our expertise. So, maybe we need some kind of presence, not too much. We’re going to take a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.”
The future of Maduro and the first lady, Cilia Flores, is uncertain. According to Trump, the presidential couple “will soon face the full weight of American justice and be tried on American soil” – or, more precisely, in New York. Anticipating the local Judiciary, the American president boasted: “In a court of law, the overwhelming evidence of your crimes will be presented. I have seen what we have. It is something both horrible and impressive that this has been allowed for so many years.”
The idea of “America for Americans” – or the revival of the Monroe Doctrine – was left for the final part of his speech: “For decades, previous administrations (two United States) neglected these threats. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in our region.”
Trump doesn’t want representatives. María Corina Machado and other opponents served as “useful idiots” to wear down the Bolivarian regime and give a supposedly popular veneer to a coup d’état. After Maduro’s capture, Corina dared to say: “The time has come for popular sovereignty and national sovereignty to govern our country. Let’s bring order, release political prisoners, build an exceptional country and bring our children back home.” There was no need to agree with the White House.
Source: vermelho.org.br
