MIAMI—Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado celebrated President Donald Trump’s strong approach to her nation, calling it “absolutely correct” as the White House considers further military actions targeting drug trafficking from Venezuela.

Machado, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke by video at the America Business Forum in Miami on Nov. 5. She remains in hiding after Maduro refused to accept last year’s election results in Venezuela, which the United States and other nations have maintained went in favor of his opponent, Edmundo González Urrutia.

Machado said Maduro is “not a legitimate head of state” and that efforts by Trump in opposition to the Venezuelan regime would “protect millions of lives of Latin American citizens and certainly Venezuelan citizens.”

Many Latin American and Western governments do not recognize the legitimacy of the socialist regime or the outcome of its elections.

The Trump administration has increased pressure on Maduro’s regime, recently doubling the bounty for information leading to his arrest to $50 million and labeling some of the nation’s transnational gangs as U.S.-designated terrorist organizations.

The U.S. has also been striking boats near Venezuela’s coast that the Pentagon says are helmed by drug traffickers intending to bring illicit substances across U.S. borders. While the Trump administration has not cast these strikes as specifically targeting Maduro’s regime, Machado welcomed the efforts as increased pressure on the Venezuelan dictator.

The White House has also reportedly considered land strikes inside Venezuela, but Machado did not comment on that on Nov. 5.

“The strategy of President Trump towards this criminal, narco-terrorist structure is absolutely correct,” she said. “[Maduro] is the head of this narco-terrorist structure that has declared war on the Venezuelan people and ... democratic nations in the region.”

The opposition leader said the regime sustains itself through drugs, weapons, and human trafficking.

“These structures, criminal structures, sustain themselves on the money that comes from drug trafficking, ... arms and weapons smuggling, and ... human trafficking, and you need to cut those cash flows,” Machado said. “Maduro started this war, and President Trump is ending that war.”

Trump said during his recent “60 Minutes” interview that he doubts the United States will go to war with Venezuela, but when asked whether Maduro’s days in power are numbered, he said, “I think so, yeah.”

Machado said her team had to smuggle printers, laptops, and scanners into Venezuela “not only to collect the tele sheets, but actually to digitize them” and prove Maduro lost the 2024 election.

“And in less than 24 hours after the election, the whole world was able to be a witness of our landslide victory,” she said.

Despite the opposition’s best efforts, Maduro has remained in power. He has also repeatedly denied that the boats hit by U.S. strikes are trafficking narcotics and has condemned Trump’s actions.

In her speech, Machado also thanked U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the state of Florida for remaining consistent allies to the Venezuelan people.