CARACAS: Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Thursday thanked the government of US President Donald Trump for opening Venezuela’s “floodgate to freedom” by capturing president Nicolas Maduro in January. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate spoke at a press conference in Caracas after returning to Venezuela from 10 months in exile. “Thanks to their vision, their courage, and their action on January 3, the floodgate to freedom has been opened,” Machado said, naming Trump, his administration and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Maduro was seized by US forces in January in a military raid on his compound in Venezuela. He and his wife were whisked to New York to face drug trafficking and other charges. Machado slipped out of Venezuela last December to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, after spending nearly a year in hiding. She returned to “mobilize society” ahead of future presidential elections, she said on Thursday. 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. Venezuela’s interim government has promised elections, but so far has not set a date.