In a significant diplomatic development, former U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado at the White House this Thursday. This high-profile meeting occurs amidst intensifying pressure on Venezuela’s interim leadership to accelerate the release of political prisoners detained under the previous regime of Nicolás Maduro.
The engagement marks a notable shift in Washington’s approach toward Machado, who had been largely sidelined since U.S. forces apprehended long-term authoritarian leader Maduro on January 3. Concurrently, the Trump administration declared its intention to actively oversee Venezuela’s transitional governance.
Despite this overture to the opposition, Trump has maintained working relations with acting president Delcy Rodriguez and other Maduro allies retained in power. The former president has issued stern warnings to Rodriguez regarding compliance with Washington’s directives, particularly concerning access to Venezuela’s substantial oil reserves, with explicit consequences for non-cooperation.
Meanwhile, Venezuelan authorities announced the release of 116 additional individuals imprisoned during Maduro’s tenure, many detained for participating in protests following the controversial 2024 election. However, human rights organizations and opposition figures have questioned the official numbers, indicating that only approximately 50 prisoners have been freed thus far from an estimated 800-1,200 political detainees.
Families of the imprisoned have maintained vigil outside correctional facilities, expressing growing frustration with the pace of releases. Manuel Mendoza, awaiting his son’s release at El Rodeo prison, articulated the collective anguish: ‘We simply ask that they keep their word. It’s already been four nights waiting out in the open air, suffering.’
Machado has sought international intervention, recently appealing to Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican to ‘intercede for all Venezuelans who remain kidnapped and disappeared.’ Her political understudy, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia—who ran as the opposition’s presidential candidate in 2024 after Machado’s disqualification by Maduro-loyal institutions—emphasized that ‘every hour that passes is a new form of violence against families’ of detainees.
Parallel to these developments, U.S. envoys have visited Caracas to discuss reopening the American embassy after a seven-year diplomatic hiatus. Trump expressed openness to meeting with Rodriguez directly, noting that his administration was collaborating ‘really well’ with Venezuela’s interim government. Regarding the prisoner releases, Trump remarked that he hoped those freed ‘will remember how lucky they got that the USA came along and did what had to be done.’