Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado arrived at the White House this Thursday for a lunch with U.S. President Donald Trump, less than two weeks after the capture of Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces. According to the U.S. leader's official schedule, the lunch will take place at 12:30 p.m. Washington time (5:30 p.m. GMT) in a private dining room of the presidential residence and will be held behind closed doors, with no press access. Machado entered the U.S. executive residence through a side door, rather than the main entrance reserved for heads of state and high-ranking dignitaries. The activist did not respond to questions from the media, including EFE, that awaited her arrival.
The meeting will be the first between Trump and the opposition leader and comes after U.S. forces deposed Maduro during a surprise attack in Venezuela, which resulted in the capture and transfer of the chavist leader and his wife, Cilia Flores, to New York to face drug trafficking charges. Until now, the U.S. leader and his Administration have dismissed Machado and her opposition movement for the first stage of the transition in Venezuela, on the grounds that the leader "lacks the necessary support" within the country. Instead, they have bet on Maduro's vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed power as interim president with Trump's backing. Trump asserts that the Venezuelan nation is under Washington's tutelage and has negotiated a pact for the U.S. to...
