Members of the Venezuelan opposition, belonging to the team of the leader María Corina Machadoheld at least eight meetings with senior advisors of the North American government, before and after the inauguration of Donald Trump. According to multiple sources cited by the Reuters agency, it was in these meetings that the Venezuelan opposition provided the US administration with reports on Nicolás Maduro’s links with criminal organizations such as the Aragua Train.
One of the meetings with senior advisors to the North American government took place on January 6, 2025. Four members of Machado’s team went to Capitol Hill to meet with Mike Waltz, who would soon become Trump’s national security advisor. There, David Smolansky, heading the opposition leader’s office in Washington, presented the thesis that the Tren de Aragua gang is controlled by Maduro.
More than 50 sources, including US officials present, former officials, members of the Venezuelan opposition and security agency informants told Reuters that in the meetings, in addition to Waltz, there was usually Senator Marco Rubio (then Security Advisor for Latin America) and special advisor Mauricio Claver-Carone.
In those meetings, The Venezuelan opposition provided investigations into the Aragua Train and the Maduro regime’s alleged role in illicit activities. These data were destined for US security agencies. However, the news agency could not independently establish whether that work directly influenced Washington policy.
The strategy of the Venezuelan opposition and Trump
The strategy of the Venezuelan opposition present Maduro as the leader of an international criminal networkbased on the link with the Tren de Aragua gang, has served as a vehicle to obtain the attention of hard-line sectors of US foreign policy. However, sources indicate that this narrative is full of uncertainties.
In Machado’s team, sources point out that there is an “impossible dilemma”: supporting Trump’s military pressure against Maduro (and his alleged links with gangs) also means supporting policies that could seriously affect the Venezuelan community in the United States, a potential voter and spokesperson for the crisis abroad.
Likewise, if the strategy fails – if Maduro is not removed or if the intervention generates destruction and collateral damage – Machado’s reputation could be affected both in Venezuela and in the diaspora in the United States.
Machado’s collaboration with sectors of the Trump government, understood as an ideological alliance between the Latin American right, anti-Chavismo and North American foreign policy, marks a significant change with respect to the past of the Venezuelan opposition, traditionally independent or in alliance with other center-left regional actors.
Now Machado appears as Washington’s secondary interlocutor, with access to high-level advisors. And at the same time, its position in conflict with the Maduro regime, hiding in Venezuela, gives it a profile of resistance that feeds its international narrative.
