WASHINGTON, D.C. — Venezuela’s largest opposition coalition has reaffirmed María Corina Machado as its leader. The announcement comes days after she said the Trump administration had shut her out of the U.S.-backed dialogue with the government in Caracas. Her message to Washington is a complaint about process, not a break.
The Coalition’s Move
On Sunday, the Democratic Unitary Platform (PUD) presented a 14-point “National Agreement for the Recovery of the Republic.” The document affirms the leadership of Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and of presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia.
It calls for a negotiated transition toward free, competitive and verifiable elections, the release of political prisoners (the human rights group Foro Penal counts 322), and recognition of the National Assembly elected in 2015. The agreement also calls for lifting political disqualifications, a ban on indefinite reelection in executive posts, and the safe return of exiles, including Machado.
The PUD said any solution must go through “the sovereign will of the people expressed through free elections.”
Machado has been abroad since December 2025. Her team says she has tried to return seven times.
The coalition’s roadmap came four days after the third round of formal negotiations began in Caracas on October 14. The dialogue table opened on August 6 with U.S. State Department backing.
Jorge Rodríguez, head of the National Assembly and brother of acting president Delcy Rodríguez, leads the government side. Dinorah Figuera, who heads the delegation of the National Assembly elected in 2015, leads the opposition side.
Figuera met Secretary of State Marco Rubio before the latest round, and Rubio said her delegation has “full backing” from the top levels of the U.S. government.
In an interview with The New York Times published October 15, Machado said Washington had excluded her. Reports say she was frustrated that decisions on Venezuela’s political future and economic restructuring are being negotiated without her movement, and that this undermines the legitimacy of any transition.
The State Department responded that her party, Vente Venezuela, was invited to the talks and that “María Corina has every right to enter her country whenever she wants.”
Machado’s complaints are aimed at the process and at specific deals, not at the president and the administration in Washington. She said she will return “sooner than you imagine,” and pushed for an independent truth commission.
Machado also criticized businessman Alejandro Betancourt, tied to a U.S.-backed oil deal Trump called “the largest oil deal in history.” She called him responsible for “obscene corruption” and said he would not be a viable partner in her government. She said contracts being signed will be respected if they comply with Venezuelan law.
She has also cast Trump as the central figure in Venezuela’s future:
“I think the greatest legacy President Trump will have in this hemisphere is being able to have a nation that rebuilds its institutions and that turns into the strongest ally of the U.S. in the region,” she said.
Although ostensibly on the sidelines, Machado continues to urge the administration in Washington to speed up the transition to democracy, building on a foundation of legitimate elections and strong institutions that she says will better serve U.S. interests in the future. She is also betting that the Trump administration will want a partner that voters chose to reflect the will of the Venezuelan people.
Opposition deputy Henrique Capriles has claimed Delcy Rodríguez wants to extend her interim term to 2030, and Machado’s platform has called protests for October 22.
The talks will test whether the U.S.-backed course in dialogue with the acting regime in Caracas can produce an election, and whether Machado’s return is on its terms.
