Machado Returns to Venezuela After Months in Exile and Appears in Lara

Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has returned to Venezuela after nearly a year outside the country. She announced her return in a social media post early on Sunday, and her first public appearance was among worshippers at the Church of Santa Rosa in Lara state, in western Venezuela.

Machado's post, as Reuters rendered it, read in part: "I'm here. With you all," and her press team shared images of her in the Plaza del Pueblo de Santa Rosa, where she appeared at the church. According to her campaign team, she was quickly surrounded by an ecstatic congregation at the church in Lara, a central-western state.

A challenge in Caracas

The return puts Machado back on Venezuelan soil in front of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who took over after United States forces captured former leader Nicolas Maduro in January. Rodriguez is Maduro's former deputy, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed support for her, hailing deals on oil production and other business ventures by United States companies in Venezuela. In September, Trump said it was too soon to consider democratic elections in Venezuela.

Machado has called for elections to be held soon, but Washington says Venezuela must first stabilize, and the Trump administration has repeatedly sidelined her despite her prominence in the opposition. Her top foreign affairs adviser, David Smolansky, told Reuters she plans to meet victims of the deadly earthquakes that struck Venezuela in June, the families of political prisoners, members of the international community, and leaders of the democratic movement. "She will work proactively for a date for free and fair elections," Smolansky said.

Trump responds

Speaking at the White House on Sunday, Trump said he did not know anything about Machado's return and suggested the United States would continue to back Rodriguez. "She's a very nice woman," Trump said of Machado, according to Reuters. "But we're doing really well in Venezuela." In a Fox News interview the same day, he said the United States had total control of Venezuela, adding: "But we're taking out millions of barrels of oil a week." Speaking to reporters as he left the White House on Sunday afternoon, Trump also said of Machado: "And I hope she's safe," according to NPR.

Neither the White House nor the Venezuelan communications ministry, which handles all press queries for the government, immediately responded to requests for comment on the return.

The road back

Machado went into hiding in Venezuela in January 2025 after being briefly detained following a protest. Later that year she left the country in a clandestine escape and reappeared in December in Norway, where she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful challenge to Maduro's authoritarian government. NPR put her time abroad at ten months.

Opposition figure Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who ran against Maduro in the disputed 2024 presidential election and is now in exile in Spain, confirmed Machado's return in a post on X and said he expected to join her soon. "Our sovereign voice returns with her to lead and guide this process," Gonzalez wrote.