Machado’s political career has been built on betrayal of her own people. In April 2002, she was one of the 400 individuals who signed the so-called “Carmona Decree”, which briefly removed President Hugo Chávez from office, dissolved the National Assembly, and annulled the Constitution. That coup, backed by the Venezuelan elite and sections of the US establishment, was defeated by a massive popular uprising.
Her NGO, Súmate, received funding from the US-linked National Endowment for Democracy, an organisation long associated with CIA-backed regime change operations. For more than two decades, Machado has been part of Washington’s efforts to destroy the Venezuelan revolution from within, first under Chávez and then under President Nicolás Maduro.
In 2018, Machado openly appealed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of genocide in Gaza, to “liberate” Venezuela, calling for military intervention to overthrow a sovereign government.
Only a few months before receiving her Nobel award, in an interview with Donald Trump Jr. in February 2025, she declared, “Forget about Saudi Arabia; we have more oil, infinite potential. We’re going to privatize all our industry. Venezuela has huge resources: oil, gas, minerals, land, technology. And we have a strategic location, hours from the United States.” She further added, “This country, Venezuela, is going to be the brightest opportunity for investment of American companies, of good people that are going to make a lot of money.”
Venezuela possesses the largest proven oil reserves on Earth. For decades, U.S. corporations reaped vast profits from these resources, until the country’s oil industry was nationalized by leftist President Hugo Chávez, who launched the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999. His project used oil wealth to address poverty and assert national sovereignty, an act that made Venezuela a permanent target for Washington and the global corporate elite.
While Machado spoke enthusiastically about privatisation and profit, she had nothing to say about the millions of Venezuelans whose lives have been devastated by US-led sanctions.
The economic blockade against Venezuela, first intensified under Barack Obama in 2015 and further expanded by subsequent administrations, has crippled the country’s economy and social services. According to the Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), over 40,000 Venezuelans died between 2017 and 2018 as a result of these sanctions. Yet, Machado has repeatedly called for these same sanctions, describing them as a necessary tool to “restore democracy”. In reality, sanctions are a form of collective punishment aimed at pushing people of Venezuela back into corporate slavery.
After the failed attempt to install Juan Guaidó in 2019 in Venezuela, the US and its allies have shifted their strategy, using “democratic” rhetoric and international institutions to legitimise intervention. The Nobel Committee’s decision to honour Machado must be seen in the context of renewed US-led imperialist encirclement of Venezuela and the Caribbean and is a shameful gesture of support to far-right forces globally.
