Nobel laureate Machado says Venezuela’s ‘illegitimate’ regime has no right to strike US oil deal
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Nobel laureate Machado says Venezuela’s ‘illegitimate’ regime has no right to strike US oil deal")
Nobel laureate María Corina Machado said the US was the “key partner” that Venezuela needed to develop its oil industry Photograph: (AFP)
Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, with an estimated 303 billion barrels, of which more than 65 billion barrels are involved in the agreement. However, Machado’s supporters fear the deal makes Washington far less inclined to push for fresh presidential elections.
Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado has questioned the country’s interim government for signing an oil deal with the US, saying the country’s natural resources do not belong to “an illegitimate regime”. Machado said the country’s people were feeling “sadness, anger and unease” at a new energy agreement
Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize winner living in exile, walked a diplomatic tightrope between being critical of the agreement and trying not to rile the White House as she broke her silence over the pact under which the Pentagon will take a 35 per cent stake in a Venezuelan oil company.
She also said the US was the “key partner” that Venezuela needed to develop its oil industry and that this view was supported by a majority of people in the country.
In a video posted on social media, Machado said, “Of course the United States is the principal partner Venezuela needs to fully develop its strategic potential. This is what the majority of Venezuelans believe … and it is something I’ve spent my whole life defending.”
However, the current occupants of the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas did not have the right or the democratic mandate to negotiate Venezuela’s natural resources, she said. “The wealth of our subsoil does not belong to an illegitimate regime—it belongs to the Venezuelan people,” she said, adding that supporters felt “sadness and anger” at being excluded from the decision-making process.
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Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, with an estimated 303 billion barrels, of which more than 65 billion barrels are involved in the agreement.
Trump’s deal was struck with the un-elected interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, who took power in January after her predecessor, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted by US special forces.
Many expected Trump would replace Maduro with Machado, a conservative democracy activist who later gave her Nobel prize award to the US president. But Trump backed Rodríguez, while sidelining Machado.
The White House claims the oil deal will help secure US “energy dominance for the next century” as well as “purging foreign malign influence from our back yard” by excluding China and Russia.
Speaking outside the Miraflores palace on Wednesday, the US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said the aim was “to massively grow production and economic opportunities in Venezuela,” adding, “President Trump has a clear mission in Venezuela. The mission is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity, and prosperity to everyone in Venezuela.”
However, Machado’s supporters fear the deal makes Washington far less inclined to push for fresh presidential elections.
On Wednesday, Trump and Rodríguez brushed off questions on when an election could be held. “You had a very powerful, very nasty dictatorship in Venezuela – and they’re just not going to be ready for it yet,” Trump told reporters, before adding, “But soon.”
Rodríguez said, “There will be an electoral process, but when Venezuela is ready. I don’t set dates.”
Machado had supported the US military’s January raid that captured former president Nicolás Maduro, who now awaits trial in the US on drug-trafficking charges.
