Machado tells US oil giants Venezuela will become beacon of wealth creation after Trump ousted Maduro

Venezuelan political leader María Corina Machado is pitching her country as a top U.S. oil partner and "beacon of hope and wealth creation for this hemisphere" after she said the Trump administration’s arrest of former dictator Nicolás Maduro has opened up a "new era" of free markets.

Addressing several thousand oil and energy executives at the CERAWeek conference in Houston, Machado, who until recently lived in the U.S. as a political exile, predicted that Venezuela will soon be a critical...