US urges Venezuela to follow phased plan for democratic transition

This comes as leading opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, returns to Venezuela and hints at criticism of Trump administration.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Oliver Blanco at the State Department in Washington, DC, on November 2, 2026 [Jose Luis Magana/AFP]

The United States has urged Venezuela to continue on a phased plan of economic recovery and political reconciliation before embarking on democratic elections.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the gradual plan during a meeting on the country’s political future with Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Oliver Blanco on Monday. The meeting comes nearly a year after US forces abducted former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas and brought him to the US to face drug trafficking and other charges.

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Neither Rubio nor Blanco spoke to the media after the meeting, but in a readout. The State Department said in a readout that Washington had reaffirmed President Donald Trump’s “three-phase plan for Venezuela: stabilization, economic recovery and political reconciliation, and democratic transition”.

Last week, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado returned to her country, thanking the US president and Rubio for their support. Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who gifted her medal to Trump in 2025, said she had come to organise a movement in preparation for Venezuelan elections.

Rubio “has set out a sequence of events aimed at moving toward a democratic transition that makes clear the holding of presidential elections in 2027”, she said.

Machado is balancing an election campaign with a Trump administration that has sought to extract oil from Venezuela by striking deals with the government of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who served as Maduro’s vice president and took over after his abduction.

In September, the Trump administration said it had struck a deal with Venezuela that would give Washington a stake in about one-fifth of the country’s oil resources.

The US said it was creating a joint venture with North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), owned by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt, which is the second-largest private oil operator in Venezuela, behind Chevron.

Under the deal, Caracas is giving the company 100-year rights over 17 oilfields with proven reserves of 65 billion barrels. The Pentagon will have a 35 percent stake in NABEP, and the US will be guaranteed the right to buy 20 percent of its oil output at cost, the Trump administration has said.

Shortly before Machado’s statements on Thursday, Rodriguez assured the nation that elections would be held in Venezuela “with the world as witness”, but did not specify a date.

When asked about a possible meeting with Rodriguez, Machado said she had not received any message from the interim president or from Washington.

In remarks after returning Venezuela, Machado seemed sceptical of the oil agreement with the US.

“This agreement does not reflect the levels of transparency that Venezuelan society wants,” Machado said.

与此同时，主要反对派领导人玛丽亚·科琳娜·马查多返回委内瑞拉，并暗示将批评特朗普政府。

2026年11月2日，美国国务卿马可·卢比奥在华盛顿特区国务院会见委内瑞拉外交部长奥利弗·布兰科。[Jose Luis Magana/AFP]

美国敦促委内瑞拉在举行民主选举之前，继续分阶段推进经济复苏和政治和解计划。

美国国务卿马可·卢比奥周一与委内瑞拉外交部长奥利弗·布兰科就该国政治未来举行会晤，讨论了逐步恢复委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗的计划。此次会晤距离美军在加拉加斯绑架马杜罗并将其带回美国接受毒品走私和其他指控已近一年。

列表 1/3：特朗普在德克萨斯州集会上吹捧委内瑞拉石油，为美国中期选举造势

名单2/3：委内瑞拉总统马查多称，自10月以来她就没和特朗普说过话。

委内瑞拉总统马查多赞扬特朗普带来“自由”，敦促举行2027年大选（共3条，此为第3条）

会后，鲁比奥和布兰科均未接受媒体采访，而是通过一份新闻稿进行了说明。美国国务院在新闻稿中表示，华盛顿重申了唐纳德·特朗普总统提出的“委内瑞拉三阶段计划：稳定、经济复苏和政治和解，以及民主过渡”。

上周，委内瑞拉反对派领导人玛丽亚·科琳娜·马查多返回委内瑞拉，感谢美国总统和卢比奥的支持。马查多是诺贝尔和平奖得主，她曾于2025年将奖章赠予特朗普。她表示，此次回国是为了组织一场运动，为委内瑞拉大选做准备。

她表示，鲁比奥“制定了一系列旨在实现民主过渡的事件，明确表示将在 2027 年举行总统选举”。

马查多正努力平衡竞选活动和特朗普政府之间的关系。特朗普政府一直试图通过与委内瑞拉临时总统德尔西·罗德里格斯的政府达成协议来从委内瑞拉榨取石油。罗德里格斯曾担任马杜罗的副总统，并在马杜罗被绑架后接管了政权。

9 月，特朗普政府表示已与委内瑞拉达成协议，该协议将使华盛顿获得该国约五分之一的石油资源股份。

美国表示，将与委内瑞拉商人亚历杭德罗·贝坦科特拥有的北美蓝色能源合作伙伴公司（NABEP）成立一家合资企业。NABEP是委内瑞拉第二大私营石油运营商，仅次于雪佛龙公司。

根据协议，加拉加斯将授予该公司17个油田100年的开采权，这些油田已探明储量达650亿桶。特朗普政府表示，五角大楼将持有NABEP公司35%的股份，美国将有权以成本价购买该公司20%的石油产量。

在马查多周四发表声明前不久，罗德里格斯向全国保证，委内瑞拉将举行选举，“全世界都将见证”，但他没有具体说明日期。

当被问及是否有可能与罗德里格斯会面时，马查多表示她没有收到来自临时总统或华盛顿的任何消息。

马查多返回委内瑞拉后发表讲话，似乎对与美国的石油协议持怀疑态度。

“这项协议并没有体现委内瑞拉社会所希望的透明度水平，”马查多说。