Opposition Leader María Corina Machado Says She Will Return to Venezuela in Coming Weeks

María Corina Machado praised U.S. President Donald Trump for his ‘vision and courage,’ having ‘brought Nicolás Maduro before international justice.’

Opposition leader María Corina Machado during an interview with AFP in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 25, 2024. Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images

Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado said on March 1 that she will return to her country in the coming weeks.

Machado, 58, did not set a date for her return, but she said in a video posted to X that one of the objectives is to prepare for “a new and resounding electoral victory.”

“I will return to Venezuela in a few weeks. I want to do so, as do hundreds and thousands of Venezuelan exiles around the world,” she said. “We will arrive to embrace one another, to work together to guarantee an orderly and sustainable transition to democracy.”

Then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, were captured in a U.S. military operation on Jan. 3 and taken to the United States, where the pair face drug trafficking-related charges. Both have denied the charges.

Delcy Rodríguez, who has been the interim leader of Venezuela since, said that Machado, who is under investigation in her home country, should have to “answer to Venezuela” for her support of U.S. military action against Caracas.

Shortly after Maduro’s capture, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Venezuela must go through phases of stabilization, economic recovery, and then, finally, a transition of power.

Rubio has not indicated that elections could be held in the short term.

Nobel Prize Winner

In her video, Machado praised U.S. President Donald Trump for his “vision and courage,” having “brought Nicolás Maduro before international justice—international justice that, finally, on Jan. 3, served the people and not the tyrants, serving the sovereignty expressed through the vote.”

“We want to thank the people of the United States, their government, their members of Congress, their judges, and their military men and women who risked their lives for the freedom of Venezuela and for the national security of their country and the security of all the Americas,” she said.

On Oct. 10, 2025, Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work fighting for democracy in Venezuela. She left Venezuela in December 2025 for Oslo, Norway, to receive the award and is currently in the United States.

She later gave her medal to Trump when she met with the U.S. president at the White House on Jan. 15.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado in the Oval Office on Jan. 15, 2026. Daniel Torok/The White House/Reuters

Machado was an opposition presidential candidate but was disqualified from running against Maduro in the 2024 election. He was replaced by Edmundo González.

After Maduro claimed victory, protests erupted, which triggered widespread repression by the state. The opposition claimed that it had evidence that González was the rightful winner. González was deemed the victor by the United States.

Maduro and his wife are being held in U.S. custody. In their first court appearance in New York City on Jan. 5, they were charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess those items.

Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, pleaded not guilty.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.