Nobel Peace Prize María Corina Machado on VOZ News: "Venezuela will be the first security ally of the United States when we achieve the transition"

In an exclusive interview with Karina Yapor, host and executive producer of VOZ News, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado backed anti-narcotics operations in the Caribbean and questioned Nicolás Maduro for trying to maintain power in exchange for the country's wealth.

During the conversation with Yapor, Machado posited that, once the transition is obtained, Caracas will be a strategic partner of Washington in economic and geopolitical terms and anticipated a massive return of Venezuelan migrants.

The counter-narcotics operations led by the Trump Administration in the Caribbean mark the current moment of relations between Washington and Caracas. Machado, like the White House, frames them as a necessary response to a "war" against narcoterrorism that—she assures—the Maduro regime opened against Venezuelans and Western democracies, expressing her full support for cooperation with the United States to close it.

"Look, this is a war, Karina, that Maduro declared on us Venezuelans in the first place. A war we did not want and where state terrorism was applied. Murdering, torturing, and disappearing innocents. And a war that he has also declared on the democratic nations of the West with his outward narco-terrorism, Machado said.

"They believed that impunity was going to be there forever, and impunity is over. Just as Maduro started this war, we Venezuelans need and have asked the international community and the U.S. government to help us end this war, because we want peace...there can only be peace if there is freedom, and there will only be freedom if there is strength—moral strength, spiritual strength and, of course, physical strength."

Then, addressing the U.S. audience directly, Machado insisted that the Venezuelan crisis is also a national security problem for the U.S., not only because of the drugs being trafficked directly from Venezuela to the U.S., but also because of the criminal gangs linked to the regime, such as the Aragua Train, which operate throughout the region.

"Look, I believe that this is a moment in which the Americas, we are all united... the Maduro regime is a real threat to the security of the United States and all the nations in our hemisphere (...) To think of what is coming once we achieve this transition and Maduro leaves power is something extraordinary. Venezuela is going to become the first security ally of the United States (...) Venezuela is in the heart of the Americas; we are going to dismantle these threats, and we are going to expel these agents of Iran and Russia. And we will be able to get those millions of migrants to return to our country. The day Maduro leaves, we will begin, Karina, to see hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans returning home."

"History will be implacable," says Machado

Questioned about the endorsements of Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to the dictatorships of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, Machado was crystal clear:

"Supporting Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua is to place oneself on the side of the people and of justice (...) On the other side are the criminals in a criminal structure that is narcoterrorism. There is no middle ground. Either you are with the people of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua, with democracy and freedom, or you support a criminal structure (...) history will be unforgiving."

Machado says that offers of wealth by Maduro are symptoms of "desperation."

In the New York Times report describing Chavismo's economic offers to Washington in exchange for staying in power, the leader pointed to cynicism and remarked that Maduro cannot negotiate, since what interests the White House today is the dismantling of transnational crime, and Maduro cannot offer such action because he is the head of the criminal structure.

"These are the ones who fill their mouths talking about anti-imperialism and sovereignty, and are capable of offering him in the crudest way all the resources of Venezuela to save their skins, despite the fact that the country is buried," Machado affirmed.

"What happens is that there is only one thing that Nicolás Maduro cannot offer, and that is to dismantle the narco-terrorist structure of which he is the head. His alliance with terrorist groups, the trafficking of minerals, gold, arms, and people (...), and the position of this international anti-narcotics coalition are matters of national security and hemispheric security. It is not an issue of money; it is an issue of security and lives."