María Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup leader who has been funded by the US government since at least 2003.
The Donald Trump administration is waging war on Venezuela, and if it can succeed in overthrowing the leftist government of President Nicolás Maduro, Machado would help to lead the new pro-US regime in Caracas.
Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, despite the fact that she openly supports Trump’s war on her country. She has for years called for a US military intervention to violently topple President Maduro.
If Trump and his powerful Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio can manage to put Machado in power, she has pledged to sell off her country’s assets to US corporations.
Machado proudly told a group of US corporate executives in Miami, Florida that she is planning a “massive privatization program”, offering “a $1.7 trillion opportunity” to exploit Venezuela’s oil, natural gas, infrastructure, gold, and other minerals.
The far-right Venezuelan opposition leader made these remarks in a virtual speech at the America Business Forum on 5 November.
Machado spoke before Donald Trump appeared on stage at the same event. She was interviewed by the Republican mayor of Miami, Florida, Francis Suarez, a loyal right-wing ally of Trump and Rubio. (He is also the son of Xavier Suarez, who previously served as Miami’s mayor.)
Donald Trump speaks at the 2025 America Business Forum in Miami, Florida
The following is a partial transcript of Machado’s comments (all emphasis added):
And this is amazing, super exciting for me: We will open Venezuela for foreign investment.
I am talking about a $1.7 trillion opportunity, not only in oil and gas, which is huge, and you know that there are opportunities, because we will open all, upstream, midstream, downstream, to all companies; but also in mining, in gold, in infrastructure, power.
We have, our grid right now has a 17 gigawatt opportunity of energy potential that needs to be rehabbed, certainly for technology and AI.
And tourism, you know, Venezuela has 2800km of pristine Caribbean coastline ready to be developed.
So this is going to be huge. We will bring rule of law. We will open markets. We will have security for foreign investment, and a transparent, massive privatization program that is waiting for you.
Venezuelan coup leader María Corina Machado is interviewed by Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami, Florida, at the 2025 America Business Forum
This was not the first time that Machado had made this promise.
Machado also spoke virtually at the Fortune Global Forum in Saudi Arabia in October, where she offered a “business opportunity, of more than $1.7 trillion”.
“Venezuela will be the single biggest economic opportunity for decades to come in this region”, vowed the US government-funded Venezuelan coup leader.
Machado presented her ultra-right-wing economic program at an event in June hosted by AS/COA, a corporate lobby group funded by a Who’s Who of large US companies.
US companies “are going to make a lot of money”, promised Venezuelan coup leader María Corina Machado
In an interview with Donald Trump Jr. in February, Machado again promised to sell off her country’s assets to US corporations.
“We are going to privatize all our industry”, she said, stressing that US companies “are going to make a lot of money”.
These were her comments:
Forget about Saudi Arabia; forget about the Saudis. I mean, we have more oil, I mean, infinite potential.
And we’re going to open markets. We’re going to kick [out] the government from the oil sector. We’re going to privatize all our industry.
Venezuela has huge resources: oil, gas, minerals, land, technology. And, as you said before, we have a strategic location, you know, hours from the United States.
So we’re going to do this right. We know what we have to do.
…
And American companies are in, you know, a super strategic position to invest.
…
This country, Venezuela, is going to be the brightest opportunity for investment of American companies, of good people that are going to make a lot of money.
María Corina Machado boasts that she is being supported by Marco Rubio and other US government officials
Machado has boasted of the fact that she and her coup-plotting movement in Venezuela are receiving support from numerous US government officials, including Marco Rubio, the second-most powerful person in the administration after Trump himself.
In an interview with Bloomberg reporter Mishal Husain in October, Machado revealed, “I have been in contact not only with several officials in the US government, but also in other countries — in Canada, in Latin America, in the Caribbean, and certainly Europe as well”.
Husain asked if Machado has specifically been in touch with Rubio. The Venezuelan coup leader confirmed that she has.
“I have been in touch with [Rubio], of course, and with his team”, Machado divulged. “And I have to say, even further in Congress, both aisles, you know, in both parties, we have really good friends and champions of our cause”.
In her virtual remarks at the America Business Forum on 5 November, Machado also thanked more US government officials for supporting the coup attempt in Venezuela.
This is what she said:
I’m so grateful to the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, that has been, you know, the champion of the cause of freedom and democracy in the Americas.
I want to thank Governor DeSantis.
I want to thank my friend, Senator Rick Scott, that has always trusted us.
And now Senator Ashley Moody.
And of course, I have to say, and I want to make a special mention to our three amigos, our three friends, [Congress members] María Elvira Salazar, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Carlos Giménez, who have been so, so, so close, and always supporting us.
Machado likewise expressed gratitude to the Miami mayor, Francis Suarez, who was interviewing her at the America Business Forum, just two hours before Trump spoke at the same event.
“You have been a great friend, Francis, of our cause. I am so grateful to you”, she said.
The Miami mayor noted that he and Machado had a friendly conversation before the interview.
“We spoke yesterday on the phone, and you invited me to a free Venezuela, and I look forward to that day, where I can go with my wife, who is in the audience, to visit you in the presidential palace, one day”, Suarez said.
This was a clear sign that US government officials hope to put Machado in power in Caracas. They are confident that the longtime US government-funded coup leader would obediently serve US interests in Latin America.
Machado stressed that, if Trump and Rubio can help her overthrow Maduro, she would cut Venezuela’s ties with China, Russia, and Iran, and their next plan would be to work with Washington to topple the leftist governments in Nicaragua and Cuba.
