President-elect Donald Trump issued a warning ahead of the inauguration of contested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who took up the top job for a third term on Friday.
Despite significant opposition both at home and abroad to the July election in which Maduro claimed victory without providing ballot-box proof, the Venezuelan leader, deemed a ‘dictator’ by American lawmakers, is now set to hold office until 2031.
On Thursday, opposition leader María Corina Machado emerged from months of hiding to join hundreds of anti-Maduro protesters in the capital city of Caracas and demand that opposition candidate Edmundo González be sworn in instead.
Machado was briefly detained by government security forces after they ‘violently intercepted’ her convoy as she attempted to leave the protests, the Associated Press reported.
Trump took to social media to demand she remain ‘safe and alive.’
‘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 wrote. ‘These freedom fighters should not be harmed, and must stay safe and alive.’
The opposition figure was apparently forced to record several videos before she was released, though the details of those recordings remain unclear.
Maduro’s supporters have reportedly denied that Machado was arrested.
On Friday, the Biden administration backed the efforts by the opposition leaders and, according to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, ‘President-elect Edmundo González Urrutia should be sworn in, and the democratic transition should begin.
‘Today, Nicolás Maduro held an illegitimate presidential inauguration in Venezuela in a desperate attempt to seize power. The Venezuelan people and world know the truth – Maduro clearly lost the 2024 presidential election and has no right to claim the presidency,’ the secretary said in a statement. ‘The United States rejects the National Electoral Council’s fraudulent announcement that Maduro won the presidential election and does not recognize Nicolás Maduro as the president of Venezuela.
‘We stand ready to support a return to democracy in Venezuela,’ Blinken added.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Friday slapped a new round of sanctions on the Maduro regime, this time targeting ‘officials who lead key economic and security agencies enabling Nicolás Maduro’s repression and subversion of democracy in Venezuela.’
Eight officials were named in the sanctions, including the recently appointed head of Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, Hector Obregon, as well as the nation’s transportation minister, Ramon Velasquez, according to a statement by the department.
‘In addition, OFAC is sanctioning high-level Venezuelan officials in the military and police who lead entities with roles in carrying out Maduro’s repression and human rights abuses against democratic actors,’ the statement said.
Maduro was also once again targeted by Washington’s sanctions, and the reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction was increased to $25 million.
The same amount was offered up for the Venezuelan Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, along with a $15 million reward for Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.
Members of the military and police were also named in the sanctions.
Blinken confirmed on Friday that some 2,000 Maduro-aligned individuals have had visa-restrictions imposed on them.