{"id":225071,"date":"2026-09-22T07:28:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T07:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/nobel-laureate-machado-illegitimate-venezuela-regime-has-no-right-to-strike-us-oil-deal-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T07:28:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T07:28:15","slug":"nobel-laureate-machado-illegitimate-venezuela-regime-has-no-right-to-strike-us-oil-deal-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/nobel-laureate-machado-illegitimate-venezuela-regime-has-no-right-to-strike-us-oil-deal-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobel laureate Machado: \u2018Illegitimate\u2019 Venezuela regime has no right to strike US oil deal – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opposition leader says interim government lacking democratic mandate to negotiate on natural resources
<\/span> The US and Venezuela: a century-old relationship drenched in oil<\/a>
The Venezuelan opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado has questioned Donald Trump\u2019s oil deal with Venezuela\u2019s interim government, saying the country\u2019s natural resources do not belong to \u201can illegitimate regime\u201d.
In her first public comments since Trump announced<\/a> what he called \u201cthe biggest oil deal in world history\u201d with Venezuela last Friday, Machado walked a diplomatic tightrope between challenging the agreement and trying not to rile the White House.
In a video posted on social media, the Nobel peace prize winner said: \u201cOf course the United States is the principal partner Venezuela needs to fully develop its strategic potential. This is what the majority of Venezuelans believe \u2026 and it is something I\u2019ve spent my whole life defending.\u201d
However, Machado said, the current occupants of the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas were \u201cenemies of the US\u201d, saying they did not have the right or the democratic mandate to negotiate Venezuela\u2019s natural resources. \u201cThe wealth of our subsoil does not belong to an illegitimate regime \u2013 it belongs to the Venezuelan people,\u201d she said, adding that supporters felt \u201csadness and anger\u201d at being excluded from the decision-making process.
Venezuela has the world\u2019s largest proven crude oil reserves with an estimated 303bn barrels, of which more than 65bn barrels are involved in the agreement.
Trump\u2019s deal was struck with the un-elected interim president, Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who took power in January after her predecessor, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, was abducted by US special forces.
Many observers expected Trump to replace Maduro with Machado, a conservative democracy activist who later gave the US president her Nobel prize award. But instead Trump backed Rodr\u00edguez, threatening: \u201cIf she doesn\u2019t do what\u2019s right, she is going to pay a very big price \u2013 probably bigger than Maduro\u201d, and sidelined Machado.
The White House claims<\/a> the oil deal will help secure US \u201cenergy dominance for the next century\u201d as well as \u201cpurging foreign malign influence from our back yard\u201d by excluding China and Russia.
Speaking outside the Miraflores palace on Wednesday, the US energy secretary, Chris Wright, said the aim was \u201cto massively grow production and economic opportunities in Venezuela\u201d, adding: \u201cPresident Trump has a clear mission in Venezuela. The mission is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity, and prosperity to everyone in Venezuela.\u201d
But there has been widespread condemnation of what critics call a predatory and colonial-style land grab. Machado\u2019s supporters fear the deal makes Washington far less inclined to push for fresh presidential elections.
Machado\u2019s movement is widely believed to have beaten Maduro by a landslide in the last such vote, in 2024, but he refused to accept the result and clung to power until his dramatic rendition on 3 January this year.
On Wednesday, Trump and Rodr\u00edguez brushed off questions about when an election might be held. \u201cYou had a very powerful, very nasty dictatorship in Venezuela \u2013 and they\u2019re just not going to be ready for it yet,\u201d Trump told reporters, before adding vaguely: \u201cBut soon.\u201d
Rodr\u00edguez said: \u201cThere will be an electoral process, but when Venezuela is ready.
\u201cI don\u2019t set dates,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opposition leader says interim government lacking democratic mandate to negotiate on natural resources The US and Venezuela: a century-old relationship drenched in oilThe Venezuelan opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado has questioned Donald Trump\u2019s oil deal with Venezuela\u2019s interim government, saying the country\u2019s natural resources do not belong to \u201can illegitimate regime\u201d.In her first public comments […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":225072,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}