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President Donald Trump is set to meet Thursday at the White House with Venezuelan opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado, whose political party is widely considered to have\u00a0won 2024 elections\u00a0rejected by then-President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro before the United States\u00a0captured him in an audacious military raid\u00a0this month.<\/p>\n
Less than two weeks after\u00a0U.S. forces seized Maduro\u00a0and his wife at a heavily guarded compound in Caracas and brought them to New York to stand trial on\u00a0drug trafficking charges, Trump will host the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, having already\u00a0dismissed her credibility to run Venezuela\u00a0and raised doubts about his stated commitment to backing democratic rule in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a very nice woman,\u201d Trump told Reuters in an interview about Machado. \u201cI\u2019ve seen her on television. I think we\u2019re just going to talk basics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The meeting comes as Trump and his top advisers have signaled their willingness to work with\u00a0acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who was Maduro\u2019s vice president and along with others in the deposed leader\u2019s inner circle remain in charge of day-to-day governmental operations.<\/p>\n
Rodr\u00edguez herself has adopted\u00a0a less strident position toward Trump\u00a0and his \u201cAmerica First\u201d policies toward the Western Hemisphere, saying she plans to continue\u00a0releasing prisoners detained under Maduro\u00a0\u2014 a move reportedly made at the behest of the Trump administration. Venezuela\u00a0released several Americans\u00a0this week.<\/p>\n
Trump said Wednesday that he had a \u201cgreat conversation\u201d with Rodr\u00edguez, their first since Maduro was ousted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,\u201d Trump told reporters. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019re getting along very well with Venezuela.\u201d<\/p>\n
In endorsing Rodr\u00edguez, Trump has sidelined Machado, who has long been a face of resistance in Venezuela. She had sought to cultivate relationships with Trump and key advisers like\u00a0Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u00a0among the American right wing in a political gamble to ally herself with the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
Despite her alliance with Republicans, Trump was quick to snub her following Maduro\u2019s capture. Just hours afterward, Trump said of Machado that \u201cit would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn\u2019t have the support within or the respect within the country. She\u2019s a very nice woman, but she doesn\u2019t have the respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Machado has steered a careful course to avoid offending Trump, notably after\u00a0winning last year\u2019s Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump coveted. She has since thanked Trump and offered to share the prize with him, a move that has been\u00a0rejected by the Nobel Institute.<\/p>\n
Machado\u2019s whereabouts have been largely unknown since she went into hiding early last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. She briefly reappeared in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf.<\/p>\n
The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the non-governmental organization she co-founded, S\u00famate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Ch\u00e1vez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other S\u00famate executives were charged with conspiracy.<\/p>\n
A year later, she drew the anger of Ch\u00e1vez and his allies again for traveling to Washington to meet President George W. Bush. A photo showing her shaking hands with Bush in the Oval Office lives in the collective memory. Ch\u00e1vez considered Bush an adversary.<\/p>\n
Almost two decades later, she marshaled millions of Venezuelans to reject Ch\u00e1vez\u2019s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a\u00a0brutal crackdown by state security forces.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Janetsky reported from Mexico City. AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Fortune #Article #Fortune<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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