Venezuela muhalefet lideri Machado, Washington'da lobici tuttu

Machado is hiring DC lobbyists for access to Venezuela's future

Opposition leader-in-exile Maria Corina Machado has hired veteran Republican lobbyists in Washington DC in what experts say is an effort to gain the support of the Trump administration as she continues to seek the Venezuelan presidency. Machado has retained lobbyist Ed Rogers as a U.S.-based “government affairs and public relations” consultant, according to a recent disclosure made to the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Rogers, a veteran of the George H.W. Bush administration, is a founding partner of BGR Group, the third largest lobbying firm in Washington. Last year, Rogers’ firm was paid $800,000 to lobby on behalf of oil companies that are now their expanding business in Venezuela. “She wanted a lobbyist because she’s been essentially written out of the script of U.S. policy in Venezuela,” Miguel Tinker Salas, a professor of Venezuelan history at Pomona College and a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute, said. “I think it’s an act of desperation. What she wants from Trump is to become a player again in Venezuelan politics, to reassert herself as the dominant opposition figure.” Machado has been a leading opposition figure in Venezuela for over two decades. In 2002, she endorsed a coup attempt against socialist President Hugo Chávez by signing the Carmona Decree to dissolve Venezuela’s constitution and legislature. In 2004, with funding from the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, Machado led a failed recall vote against Chávez. In 2024, the regime headed by President Nicolas Maduro prohibited her from running for president, and she threw her support behind opposition candidate Edmundo González. Maduro declared victory, but the United Nations and election monitors at the Carter Center criticized the election’s integrity. Months later, the international community, including the Biden administration, declared Gonzalez the winner and rightful president. Soon after, Gonzalez and Machado both fled the country under threat as the chorus grew for an audit of the results (though critics point out that while Gonzalez left shortly after the elections in 2024, Machado left clandestinely more than a year later in December 2025 to receive her Nobel Peace Prize, knowing she would not be able to come back). Two years later, Machado may still have her eyes on office in Venezuela and is gaining political allies via the oil industry. After the U.S. capture of Maduro in January, the Trump administration imposed new rules on the Venezuelan oil industry, weakening state control and effectively permitting Washington to take control the country’s oil exports and revenue. The Financial Times recently calculated that under the new oil regime, the U.S. has extracted about $13 billion from Venezuela but only returned $300 million of the profits. In Rogers, Machado is retaining a lobbyist who is exceptionally well-connected among U.S. oil companies that are seeking to expand operations in Venezuela. Machado herself, speaking at the Houston oil convention CERAWeek in March, told an audience of oil industry insiders that “the Venezuelan state will get out of the way and pave the way to give the conditions so that the oil and gas sector in Venezuela will go fully private.” Machado used the conference to introduce herself as the figure in Venezuelan politics who will work the hardest to attract investment from American energy companies. “We need your input,” she said at CERAWeek. “One of the reasons I’m here is because I want to invite you…to come up with your ideas, your suggestions in order to have the right incentives in place.” She is hoping BGR will come through for her as it did for the U.S. oil company Valero Energy, which paid BGR Group $320,000 for lobbying services in 2025. Just weeks after Maduro was captured, Valero became one of the first U.S. firms to purchase crude oil from Venezuela, in a deal that also involved Dutch energy trader Vitol. Before the coup, Valero was prohibited from buying crude by U.S. sanctions. Vitol also paid Rogers’ BGR Group $320,000 for lobbying services last year. Just last month, Vitol opened its first office in Venezuela, where the firm will handle more than 100 million barrels of exported oil. John Addison, a senior trader at Vitol, donated $6 million to President Trump’s reelection campaign, a potential conflict of interest called into question by Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.). Multinational oil giant BP also made major inroads with the new Venezuelan regime this spring. Like Vitol and Valero Energy, BP is also a client of BGR Group, having paid the firm $160,000 for lobbying services in 2025. BP signed an agreement with the Venezuelan government in April allowing it to develop new offshore gas projects. Machado’s decision to hire Rogers comes as a new series of talks begins between the Venezuelan government – led by President Delcy Rodriguez since the U.S. Maduro’s capture in January – and opposition voices inside the country. Reuters reported this week that Machado has so far been excluded from the talks. According to the New York Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio “effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, distribution of natural resources and its government.” Tinker Salas believes that lobbying the U.S. government may be the most effective way for Machado to lobby her own government. “Many Venezuelans refer to Rubio as the viceroy of Venezuela. It has become essentially a colony of the United States.” Machado had been planning for the privatization of Venezuela’s oil industry since long before Maduro’s ouster. According to a 2025 FARA disclosure, Machado met with the U.S. energy secretary and Venezuela’s “Ad Hoc Board of Petroleos de Venezuela,” an unofficial board of oil industry governors appointed by the opposition government in Venezuela’s National Assembly. According to the filing, Machado attended a video conference with a representative of the Inter American Development Bank to discuss Venezuela’s “future energy policy, particularly on oil, gas, and electricity.” At the time of this meeting, Machado had not served in public office in Venezuela for over a decade. A year later after this meeting, Machado has been excluded from official negotiations regarding Venezuela’s future. But, according to Tinker Salas, that doesn’t mean her quest for the presidency is finished. “Her overwhelming aspiration has always been to become president of Venezuela, and she has said that clearly on multiple occasions. Being an oil broker would be a step down.”