Trump Warns Venezuela Not to Harm Opposition Leader Machado
(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump urged Venezuela not to harm opposition leader María Corina Machado after she was briefly arrested on Thursday, in his first public comments on the country’s disputed election.
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Trump, on his Truth Social platform, praised Machado and Edmundo Gonzalez, who won more votes than President Nicolás Maduro in July’s presidential election, according to records collected by the opposition.
“Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado and President-elect Gonzalez are peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the regime,” he said.
“The great Venezuelan American community in the United States overwhelmingly support a free Venezuela, and strongly supported me. These freedom fighters should not be harmed, and MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!,” Trump added.
Trump’s comments come after Machado reemerged in public earlier Thursday to join thousands of Venezuelans protesting against what they say was a fraudulent vote. Her appearance came more than four months since she went into hiding following Maduro’s contested claim of victory in July.
According to the opposition, security forces arrested Machado after a protest in Caracas and released her about two hours later. Still, the arrest marked a significant escalation by Maduro’s autocratic regime which has been intensifying its crackdown on critics of the government.
Trump’s stance on Venezuela and whether he would take a hard line on Maduro has been the subject of speculation. The president-elect has vowed to carry out a mass deportation of illegal migrants, but would need Maduro’s agreement to send Venezuelans from the US.
Maduro was declared the winner by the electoral authority without presenting evidence. He intends to take office Friday despite international condemnation.
Gonzalez showed proof that he obtained nearly 70% of the vote and vowed to return to the country for the inauguration despite the government’s threats to arrest him.
In his post, Trump pointedly referred to Gonzalez as “president-elect,” a term that the Biden administration only began using in November.
The distinction is important because, after Maduro holds a swearing-in ceremony Friday to begin his third term, Trump will have to decide whether to start calling Gonzalez the real president. That harks back to an unsuccessful strategy Trump tried in his first term, when he recognized Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s leader instead of Maduro.
That tactic failed to rally the internal support needed to unseat Maduro, and doing so again would antagonize him further.
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