“The day is approaching” for families to be reunited again in Venezuela. This is how the opposition leader summarized the results of her meeting this Tuesday at the State Department with
“Excellent meeting with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Thank you for your commitment to democracy, Freedom and the well-being of Venezuelans,” Machado wrote on his account on the social network Instagram. The text is accompanied by a photograph of the two politicians. She, smiling. Him, more serious.
“The day is approaching when we will reunite our families in Venezuela!” added the Nobel Peace Prize winner after what was her second meeting at the State Department with Rubio since Caracas on January 3. “We move forward!”
So far, the State Department has not commented publicly on the closed-door meeting, which appeared on Rubio’s official agenda for this Tuesday. The leader of the Venezuelan opposition met in February, also behind closed doors, with US President Donald Trump, whom
The meeting between the head of US diplomacy and the leader of the Vente Venezuela party was held one day after the United States officially reopened its embassy in Caracas.
Both countries had broken their ties in 2019, but President Donald Trump and the new Venezuelan president, Delcy Rodríguez, agreed to resume diplomatic relations after the US military intervention and the confirmation of Maduro’s former number two in the top position.
Machado left Venezuela last December, after spending more than a year in hiding after the July 2024 elections in which the opposition triumphed according to numerous international organizations and governments, to collect his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
After Maduro’s kidnapping, Machado has expressed on numerous occasions his intention to return to Venezuela to participate in his country’s political normalization process.
The Trump Administration has recognized Rodríguez as president of Venezuela and points out that a phase of normalization and another of stabilization will still be necessary in the country on which it has imposed its tutelage, before the conditions are met for elections to be held.
Last Saturday, Vente Venezuela once again assured that Machado will return to his country “in the coming days,” although he did not set a date for that return.
Last week, a Venezuelan delegation led by chargé d’affaires Félix Plasencia visited Washington to meet with representatives of the Republican Administration and in the US capital. The building remained guarded by the State Department since 2023.
In a videoconference intervention at a business forum in Miami sponsored by Saudi Arabia, he noted last Friday the steps his government is taking to guarantee legal security for companies, although he did not allude to any deadline for holding elections. “It is important that the environment for investments can occur in an environment of security where the investor knows that, regardless of political alternations, regardless of the context of restrictions, the investor knows that there is security, that there are laws in Venezuela that allow a return on their investments in a serious way,” said Rodríguez from Caracas.
