The opposition leader tells Fox News she is ‘grateful’ for Trump’s ‘courageous vision’ after Maduro’s abduction.

Venezuela’s opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, says she has not spoken to United States President Donald Trump since October last year, even as she fulsomely lauds his administration’s brazen military actions in Venezuela.

In a brief interview with Sean Hannity on the Hannity ​programme by Fox News, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner said she wants to “personally” thank the president for the abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

“I spoke with Trump on October 10, the same day the prize was announced. Not since then,” Machado said. “But I do want to say – on behalf of the Venezuelan people – how grateful we are for his courageous vision, the historical actions he has taken against this narcoterrorist regime, to dismantle this structure and bring Maduro to justice.”

The right-wing politician’s comments came after Trump told reporters on Sunday that Machado “doesn’t have the respect” to lead Venezuela or the support of the people.

Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s former vice president, has since been sworn in to lead the country on an interim basis.

“I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader,” Trump said of Machado. “She doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”

In 2023, Machado declared victory in the Venezuelan opposition’s presidential primary after receiving 93 percent of the vote. But she was barred from running, forcing her to go into hiding for more than a year before defying a travel ban to accept the Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.

Machado left the capital, Oslo, in December, but her current whereabouts are unknown.

The opposition leader told Hannity she plans to return to Venezuela “as soon as possible”.

‘A huge step for humanity’

Machado, a hard right-winger who has aligned herself with hawks in the Trump administration, stirred international controversy when she first dedicated her prize to Trump in October.

Trump had coveted the Nobel Peace Prize for months, publicly campaigning that he had “ended seven wars”.

“I dedicated it to President Trump because I believed, at that time, that he deserved it,” Machado told Hannity. Now, after deposing Maduro, “he has proven to the world what he means”.

“It’s not only huge for the Venezuelan people and their future … it’s a huge step for humanity, for freedom, and human dignity,” she added.

The White House indicated on Sunday that it was not seeking regime change in Venezuela, but rather a docile government that will allow US companies to exploit the country’s vast oil reserves.

Trump had previously said he would “run” Venezuela as “very large United States oil companies” tapped its resources.

Machado seemed to welcome this idea, telling Hannity that Venezuela would transform into an “energy hub” for the US.

“We will bring rule of law, we will open markets, we will bring security for investments,” Machado said.

The abduction of Maduro was an attack by the US that skirted not only international law but also US political limits, various international experts and analysts have said.

It is part of the US’s “new imperialistic era” centred on oil and strategic interests and risks normalising similar actions by other powers, Sultan Barakat, senior professor at the College of Public Policy at Qatar’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University, told Al Jazeera.

Trump is “bypassing … international law. He’s bypassing Venezuelan law … and he doesn’t seem to give a damn about what the people of Venezuela really think or want,” Barakat said.

Trump-era policies and rhetoric have “mutated” US politics as nationalism has intensified and Christianity has become more entwined with governance – trends that will distort the existing international order, he added.