Marco Rubio has a message for Venezuela’s returning opposition star: don’t interfere with what the US has planned. “You’re not going to street-protest your way into a democracy,” the secretary of state said Monday, in a pointed but indirect swipe at María Corina Machado, whose surprise return to Caracas, calls for elections next year, and objections to a major US oil deal have unsettled Washington, per Axios. Rubio insists key overhauls—replacing Venezuela’s Maduro-aligned Supreme Court and National Electoral Council, and tackling the country’s crushing debt—must come before an election. Officials have also discussed possible security-sector reforms.
Though Rubio said Washington had a role in Machado’s return, passing on assurances from former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez’s interim government that the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate would be able to move freely, he noted anyone who tries to interfere with the US-negotiated plan “is doing great harm to Venezuela,” per the Miami Herald. “We have timelines that are agreed to,” he said, adding that the interim government has so far “met every one.” A senior US official said a new court could be installed by mid-December. Once all the goals are met, Rodríguez could declare a vacancy in the presidency, triggering an election six months later. Rubio insists he won’t allow the government to wait out Trump’s administration, which ends in January 2029.