Overview
- After a White House lunch, María Corina Machado said President Trump is totally committed to the freedom of Venezuelans and political prisoners, with Republican figures including Marco Rubio and Rick Scott participating in meetings on Capitol Hill.
- Machado told reporters she counts on Trump for Venezuela’s freedom, asserted that more than 90% of Venezuelans want liberty, dignity and justice, and noted a conversation with opposition figure Edmundo González Urrutia.
- According to reporting, U.S. forces carried out a Jan. 3 operation that deposed and captured Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, transferring them to New York on alleged narcotics charges, with some reports citing about a hundred deaths.
- Acting president Delcy Rodríguez, in an address in Caracas, vowed she would go to Washington "standing, not dragged," accused the United States of unprecedented aggression, and urged a diplomatic resolution through political dialogue.
- Rodríguez also proposed a partial reform of the hydrocarbons law to attract foreign investment and channel oil revenues into social and infrastructure funds, as the U.S. recently convened major oil companies to discuss Venezuela.