The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has publicly questioned Donald Trump's oil deal with Venezuela's interim government, arguing that the country's natural resources do not belong to what she called "an illegitimate regime". Speaking for the first time since Trump announced the agreement last Friday, the Nobel peace prize winner tried to balance her criticism of the deal with an effort not to alienate the White House, insisting the US remains the partner Venezuela needs while denying the current Caracas administration any democratic mandate to negotiate over the nation's subsoil wealth. The intervention highlights her increasingly awkward position after being sidelined by Washington in favour of the un-elected interim president, Delcy Rodríguez.

Venezuela holds the world's largest proven crude reserves, estimated at 303bn barrels, with more than 65bn barrels covered by the new agreement struck with Rodríguez, who took power in January after Nicolás Maduro was removed by US special forces. Trump has framed the deal as securing "energy dominance" and excluding Chinese and Russian influence, while critics have branded it a predatory, colonial-style land grab; Machado's supporters fear it reduces pressure on Washington to push for fresh elections, despite her movement being widely believed to have won the 2024 vote by a landslide, with both Trump and Rodríguez declining to commit to a timeline for a new poll.