The head of United States diplomacy, Marco Rubio, spoke this Wednesday “with the legitimate president of Venezuela, Edmundo González Urrutia, and the leader of the opposition María Corina Machado,” said Tammy Bruce, spokesperson for the State Department.
Two days after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Rubio formalized in a videoconference the support of the new US administration for González Urrutia, who denounces the re-election of ruler Nicolás Maduro in the country as a fraud and demands a victory at the polls.
“He praised the courage of the Venezuelan people in the face of repression” by “Maduro and his cronies,” Bruce said in a statement.
Rubio reiterated Washington’s support “for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela, as well as for the unconditional and immediate release of all political prisoners,” the spokesperson added.
González Urrutia, who attended Trump’s inauguration, thanked the contact with the new Secretary of State and expressed that “it demonstrates the priority that Venezuela has on its agenda.”
“Your support is a key boost,” he continued on the X social network.
Trump had already called González Urrutia “president-elect” after the Venezuelan opposition denounced that Machado was briefly “forcibly detained” after a protest.
“We know that we have our strategic allies,” Machado said in X.
The Minister of the Interior of Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello, took weight away from the conversation: “They had to settle for a video call.”
Trump’s return to the Oval Office has opened a new chapter in bilateral relations between Washington and Caracas.
In his appearance before the Senate to be confirmed in office, Rubio stated that Venezuela “is governed by a drug trafficking organization that has empowered itself as a nation-state” and questioned its close relations with Russia and Iran.
Rubio criticized the government of former Democratic President Joe Biden for negotiating with Maduro, “who agreed to hold elections” but “they were completely false.”
The Biden administration increased the reward for the Venezuelan president to $25 million, for accusations of “drug trafficking” and “corruption.”
During his first government, Trump also did not recognize Maduro when he called his first re-election fraudulent.
In 2019, he considered the head of Parliament, former deputy Juan Guaidó, “interim president” of Venezuela and imposed a battery of sanctions, including an oil embargo, in a failed pressure strategy to try to bring about the fall of Maduro.
The Venezuelan opposition itself ended Guaidó’s symbolic interim government in January 2023.
Rubio said he would review the licenses granted by the Democratic administration to oil companies to operate in Venezuela.
“Companies like Chevron are contributing billions of dollars to the regime’s coffers,” Rubio protested. “All of that needs to be re-explored.”
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