Machado offers the Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump "for his commitment to freedom"

WashingtonThe dispute between Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, and opposition leader María Corina Machado for Donald Trump's favor is beginning to clear up. the question of who really rules the Caribbean countryMachado met behind closed doors this Thursday at the White House with the US president, in a meeting that the Trump administration has downplayed. Machado had lunch with the president and, after the meeting, which lasted more than two hours, described the conversation as "good." It wasn't until the chaotic press conference following the meeting with US senators that the opposition leader explained that she had brought her Nobel Peace Prize medal for the US president. "I presented him with the medal," she stated. She added, "I told him: 'Two hundred years ago, General Lafayette presented President Simón Bolívar with a medal bearing the image of George Washington, and he always cherished it. Exactly 200 years later, Bolívar's people are returning a medal to Washington in recognition,'" she told reporters. According to the opposition leader, it was a gesture to thank the magnate for his "unique commitment to freedom." Machado has not responded to whether Trump accepted the offering or not. The Nobel committee had already warned Machado that the prize is non-transferable and that this could not be done.

Before the lunch ended, press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that Machado is not the right person to lead regime change in Venezuela: "It's a realistic position." However, she again praised her as "a truly remarkable and courageous voice for many Venezuelans." Meanwhile, the White House also reiterated the idea that Rodríguez is a subordinate of Washington. "So far, they have complied with all the demands and requests of the United States and the president," Leavitt asserted. "The president likes what he is seeing and hopes that the cooperation will continue."

From Caracas, Rodríguez once again performed the same balancing act she has been doing in recent days, replying: "If I ever have to go to Washington, I will go standing up, never crawling." She added: "Enough of political classes that usurp what it means to be a politician in order to surrender themselves to Washington's orders. And I say this, someone whom history has placed in that responsibility."

These words contrast sharply with the interim president's determination to call Trump yesterday, just before her meeting with Machado. "We had an excellent conversation, and she is a fantastic person. In fact, she is someone with whom we have worked very well," the president told reporters on Wednesday from the Oval Office regarding the phone call. He asserted that it had been a "long" conversation in which "many topics" had been addressed.

The objective of oil

Washington has already begun setting in motion the machinery to plunder Venezuela's crude oil reserves. In an initial payment to the US, Caracas will hand over up to 50 million barrels of oil, a volume that could be valued at more than $2.8 billion. Simultaneously, Trump has already been pressuring major oil companies to invest at least $100 billion to restore Venezuela's damaged oil infrastructure and the start of a new gold rush, in this case, for black gold.

Almost two weeks ago, the elite Delta Force unit kidnapped Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in the middle of the night. The operation, which resulted in at least one hundred deaths in Caracas, shocked the country and the entire international community. Trump was carrying out the threats of recent months and thus culminating the military siege erected around the Latin American country with bombings against alleged drug-laden boats in the Caribbean and the deployment of US Navy ships to the edge of Venezuelan waters.

In the hours following the military intervention in Venezuela, Trump had already ruled out Machado as a possible replacement in the power vacuum created in the country. On the contrary, the president pointed to Rodríguez, Maduro's deputy, as a possible interlocutor. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had already been speaking with her, as he explained at the press conference. The Hispanic official—one of the ideologues behind the entire interventionist project—pointed to Rodríguez as a better interlocutor than her predecessor, while Machado watched as the possibility of taking the reins of the country crumbled.

Shortly afterward, administration sources explained to Washington Post that one of the reasons why Trump had ruled it out Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize so quickly. Although the opposition leader dedicated the award to him, the president felt he shouldn't have accepted it.