Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips (The Guardian, UK) writes about Nobel Peace Prize–winner María Corina Machado— “Opposition leader says interim government lacking democratic mandate to negotiate on natural resources”— and refers to the US and Venezuela’s history as “a century-old relationship drenched in oil.” Here are excerpts; read the full article at The Guardian.

The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has questioned Donald Trump’s oil deal with Venezuela’s interim government, saying the country’s natural resources do not belong to “an illegitimate regime”.

In her first public comments since Trump announced what he called “the biggest oil deal in world history” 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: “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, Machado said, the current occupants of the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas were “enemies of the US”, saying they did not have the right or the democratic mandate to negotiate Venezuela’s natural resources. “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.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves with an estimated 303bn barrels, of which more than 65bn 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 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 Rodríguez, threatening: “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price – probably bigger than Maduro”, and sidelined Machado. [. . .]

For full article, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/03/venezuelan-opposition-leader-questions-us-oil-deal-with-illegitimate-regime

[Photo above by Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images: María Corina Machado addressing the Venezuelan diaspora during a rally in Panama City in May.]