Overview
- Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado held a closed-door lunch with President Trump to press for a transition to elected rule.
- Trump has questioned Machado’s support at home and has praised Delcy Rodríguez as interim president without specifying when he wants free elections.
- U.S. forces seized a sixth Venezuela-linked tanker, the Veronica, in the Caribbean, and a U.S. official said the first U.S.-brokered oil sale of about $500 million was finalized.
- Venezuela has released dozens of political prisoners in the past week, though hundreds remain detained according to opposition and rights accounts.
- The Norwegian Nobel Institute reiterated that prizes cannot be transferred after Machado publicly dedicated her Peace Prize to Trump.