Venezuelan opposition leader visits White House. Here's how it went.
This story has been updated to correct an error.
WASHINGTON – Venezuelan opposition leader Marina Corina Machado got her courtesy luncheon with President Donald Trump, but gained little else politically after the White House secured a $500 million deal for Venezuelan oil through ongoing talks with Delcy Rodríguez, the country's interim president.
The administration is pressing ahead with its promised sale of Venezuelan oil through talks with Rodríguez, who served as vice president under Nicolás Maduro before the third-term president and his wife were seized by U.S. forces in a surprise military operation in early January.
The White House indicated on Jan. 15 that it was pleased with the cooperation of the former vice president, Rodríguez. Trump had no expectations for his meeting with Machado, the president's spokeswoman said, and wasn't seeking information from her that could speed up the timeline for change in leadership or democratic elections.
Machado also met with senators from both major parties on Capitol Hill after the meeting with Trump.
The White House has clinched the first sale of Venezuelan oil since Maduro's capture in a deal valued at $500 million, and other sales are expected in the coming days and weeks, according to an administration official. News of the deal broke hours after Trump spoke by phone for the first time to Rodríguez on Jan. 14. It was first reported by the news site Semafor.
Three people with knowledge of the deal said some proceeds from the sale would be held in a Qatari bank.
The Trump administration is also planning to grant an expanded license to Chevron to operate in Venezuela, according to two USA TODAY sources. Reuters first reported that a deal was in the works. For years, Chevron has been the sole American company with access to Venezuelan oil through joint ventures with the country's state-run producer.
“President Trump’s team is facilitating positive, ongoing discussions with oil companies that are ready and willing to make unprecedented investments to restore Venezuela’s oil infrastructure," Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement. The White House did not comment on whether some funds from the deal would be held in Qatar.
Meanwhile, the United States has tried to prevent oil sales it doesn't condone by seizing a series of tankers carrying oil for sale to other countries such as China. Hours before Trump met with Machado, U.S. forces seized a sixth tanker in the Caribbean.
Both Trump and Rodríguez had rosy words about their call, and Rodríguez said on X that it was a "long and courteous" discussion, "conducted within a framework of mutual respect."
"We just had a great conversation today," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Jan. 14. "She's a terrific person. I mean, she's somebody that we've worked with very well."
The Trump administration has praised Rodríguez's willingness to crack open Venezuela's oil reserves – the largest of any nation worldwide – to U.S. interests, unlike her predecessor, Maduro, whom U.S. forces captured along with his wife from his bunker in Caracas in the early morning hours of Jan. 3.
Trump had not spoken as highly of Machado, whose party says it beat Maduro in a 2024 election.
"She's a very nice woman, but she doesn't have the respect within the country," Trump told reporters hours after Maduro's capture.
Another point of tension between Machado and Trump had been the Nobel Peace Prize, which Trump long coveted and which was awarded to Machado last year. Machado told reporters after the meeting that she had presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to Trump.
In a Truth Social post, the president offered few details. He called the presentation of the peace prize "a wonderful gesture of mutual respect" and said he was honored to meet the Venezuelan politician.
"She is a wonderful woman who has been through so much," Trump said, striking a warm tone.
International election monitors said there was overwhelming evidence that Machado's party won the 2024 election against Maduro, but Maduro refused to relinquish power.
As Trump sent thousands of troops and elite military ships to the region in the lead-up to the Jan. 3 raid, Machado beseeched him to intervene in her country and topple Maduro. Since the United States did just that, Machado has said she should be the person to lead the country – but to no avail.
"We are ready and willing to serve our people as we have been mandated," she told CBS in a Jan. 7 interview.
Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, are now behind bars in New York awaiting trial on U.S. narcotrafficking and corruption charges brought during Trump's first term.
US oil companies will 'get the oil flowing' in Venezuela, Trump says
Trump has said the U.S. will "run" Venezuela in the wake of Maduro's removal and "get the oil flowing" to U.S. corporations who have for years been cut off from accessing the country's massive, government-controlled oil reserves.
At a White House meeting on Jan. 9, Trump tried to entice more than a dozen executives from major U.S. oil companies into lucrative Venezuela deals that he said Maduro's capture had opened up.
"We're going to be working with Venezuela. We're going to be making the decision as to which oil companies are going to go in, that we're going to allow to go in," Trump said at the meeting.
"American companies will have the opportunity to rebuild Venezuela's rotting energy infrastructure and eventually increase oil production to levels never ever seen before."
Venezuela had already agreed to allow the United States to refine and sell as many as 50 billion barrels of oil, he added.
Trump later threatened to shut ExxonMobil out of the developing deals because its CEO, Darren Woods, said Venezuelan oil was "uninvestable" due to legal and commercial factors.
Trump has also suggested that the United States may reimburse oil companies for their work rebuilding Venezuela's oil infrastructure – a prospect some Democratic lawmakers denounced. Rep. Mike Levin and Sen. Jeff Merkley introduced bills in the House and Senate on Jan. 13, aiming to prevent taxpayer dollars from being used to compensate oil companies working in Venezuela.
The recent $500 million oil sale "creates an untraceable pool of money that can be steered without meaningful congressional oversight," Merkley said in a statement to USA TODAY.
"There is no reason to trust this money will benefit democracy or the Venezuelan people," he added.
Sen. Tim Kaine, who has led a congressional effort to halt the Trump administration's interventions in Venezuela through a war powers resolution, said in a statement, “This oil sale smacks of corruption. Why are proceeds headed to a bank account in Qatar? Which billionaires are profiting from President Trump’s absurd plans to ‘run’ Venezuela for years to come?"
Machado pressed to demonstrate support
Uriel Epshtein, chief executive officer of the Renew Democracy Initiative, a nonprofit that runs a program to unite dissidents from around the world, said before Machado met with Trump that her public support was made clear by the vote tally in the last presidential election. Demonstrating her influence on the elites and military generals will prove more difficult, he said.
“I do think that there is evidence that she has support among the lower-ranking echelons of the Venezuelan military, but it's very clear that she does not have sufficient support among the higher-ranking echelons of the Venezuelan military,” said Epshtein, who is in close touch with the opposition.
One way of telling if the meeting with Machado went well will be if the U.S. leaves in place the sanctions it has on Venezuela, he said.
If the U.S. lifts sanctions, it will mean that Trump has determined that Rodríguez “is someone they can work with, and they are okay leaving her in power," Epshtein said.
If that happens, he said, money will flow to the regime. "And once the regime has more money, they can pay their senior military leaders more money, guaranteeing their loyalty, guaranteeing the stability of the regime," he said.
Were that to happen, the Trump administration would be working with a government the United States has for years declared illegitimate, rather than the party the U.S. previously said won the 2024 election.