By Aldgra Fredly
Contributing Writer
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado said she supports the Trump administration’s actions in dealing with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s government, including the U.S. seizure of a crude oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela last week.
Machado, who has been living in hiding in Venezuela due to fears of prosecution by Maduro’s government, traveled to Norway last week to receive the Nobel Peace Award.
The Nobel Prize committee said she was awarded for her efforts in “promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.”
In an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday, Machado said she dedicated the award to U.S. President Donald Trump because he “put Venezuela in where it should be, in terms of a priority for the United States national security.”
“Look, I absolutely support President Trump’s strategy, and we, the Venezuelan people, are very grateful to him and to his administration, because I believe he is a champion of freedom in this hemisphere,” Machado said, adding that she thinks the Maduro regime’s days are numbered amid the U.S.-Venezuela tensions.
The U.S. armed forces have increased their presence in the Caribbean region, carrying out strikes against vessels that U.S. officials say are transporting illegal drugs to the United States.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said last week that the United States executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela on Dec. 10. Bondi said that the vessel, dubbed M/T Skipper, was used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
In a Dec. 10 statement, the Venezuelan government accused the United States of theft and described the seizure as “an act of international piracy.” It said it would denounce the incident before international bodies.
The Trump administration also sanctioned three nephews of Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, and six shipping companies operating in Venezuela’s oil sector over their alleged ties to Maduro’s regime, which Trump has accused of involvement in drug trafficking to the United States. Maduro and the Venezuelan government have repeatedly denied the allegations.
Machado said she supports the Trump administration’s actions, noting that Maduro’s government has created “a very complex criminal structure that has turned Venezuela into a safe haven of international crime and terrorist activities.”
“As every criminal structure suffers when the inflows from their criminal activities are cut. And these, in the case of Maduro regime, comes from the oil black market to drug trafficking, gold smuggling, arm smuggling, even human smuggling and trafficking,” she said. “So that’s what we believe, it was so important to apply, you know, law enforcement, and we have been asking this for years, so it’s finally happening.”
When asked if she supports more U.S. seizures and blockades, Machado said she wants “every legal action through law enforcement” by the United States, as well as Caribbean, Latin American, and European countries, to further block what she called the Maduro regime’s illegal activities.
“Why? Because we need to increase the cost of staying in power by force. Once you arrive to that point in which the cost of staying in power is higher than the cost of leaving power, the regime will fall apart, and it’s the moment where we, you know, advance into a negotiated transition. Which is what in the beginning we offered Maduro when we won the presidential election by landslide last year, but he not only refused that option, but he, as you know, unleashed the worst, most brutal repression wave we’ve seen in our history,” she said.
Machado was barred from running in last year’s presidential election and instead endorsed opposition candidate Edmundo González. Venezuela’s electoral authority declared Maduro the winner, securing him a third six-year term, though several nations — including the United States — questioned the legitimacy of the results.
González went into exile in Spain in September 2024 after Venezuelan authorities issued an arrest warrant for him following the disputed election results. Machado went into hiding to avoid prosecution.
