María Corina Machado, the exiled Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has made a forceful bid in the past week to return to her country, telling the Trump administration and the Venezuelan people that she wants to help with the recovery from the devastating earthquakes.

But the Trump administration has repeatedly rejected her requests and told the opposition leader that she has become a distraction, turning months of simmering tensions into an open breach with Venezuela’s most popular politician, according to six people familiar with the discussions.

Some officials now say it is unclear whether Ms. Machado will be able to repair her relationship with the Trump administration.

Ms. Machado, once a lauded protégé of Washington’s Republican establishment, led the opposition group whose candidate handily won the 2024 presidential election, according to independent observers, despite widespread manipulation and voter suppression by the government. The election was stolen by Venezuela’s autocrat, Nicolás Maduro, who was ousted early this year by U.S. forces.

But she faces possible reprisals from Venezuela’s security forces if she returns, and has failed to persuade Mr. Trump that she has the political leverage to govern Venezuela, a country that he has repeatedly described as his second term’s greatest foreign policy success.

Even Ms. Machado’s unprecedented gesture of giving Mr. Trump her Nobel medal as a present — over the prize committee’s opposition — has not been enough to sway him. After living in hiding in Venezuela for fear of arrest, she left last year to receive the Peace Prize, and has not returned.

Two earthquakes that devastated Venezuela last Wednesday became the breaking point of a relationship with Mr. Trump that has been fraying for months. Ms. Machado has used the disaster to try to reinsert herself at the center of Venezuela’s political life, redoubling her efforts to gain U.S. backing to return to the country.

The Trump administration has instead prioritized stability, and has doubled down on an alliance with Ms. Machado’s adversaries in the Venezuelan government, holdovers from the Maduro regime.

The White House urged Ms. Machado to remain patient, and when the opposition leader ignored that advice, told her in recent days that she was now acting on her own and did not have the backing of the United States government, according to seven people familiar with the discussions.

The loss of support from the United States has practical consequences for Ms. Machado and Venezuela’s political future.

Like millions of other Venezuelan emigrants, she does not have a valid Venezuelan passport, the result of the government’s longstanding discrimination against opposition-leaning citizens. As a result, Ms. Machado needs to exert external pressure on Venezuela’s rulers to secure her entry. Because the United States today holds sway over the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, it is uniquely positioned to ensure Ms. Machado’s entry.

“I want to return to Venezuela to accompany you,” Ms. Machado said in a video address to Venezuelans on Monday from Panama City. “The regime wants to block my return to Venezuela, and the return of the thousands of Venezuelans who want to come to help.”

Ms. Machado’s opponents in Washington and Venezuela have successfully argued to senior White House officials that her arrival risks inflaming the country’s already tense environment following the quakes, and endangering the joint disaster relief efforts, the people familiar with the discussions said.

The White House referred comment to the State Department and the Venezuelan government, and Ms. Machado’s office did not respond to requests for comment. A State Department official declined to comment on Ms. Machado. The U.S. official praised Venezuela’s interim government’s response to the earthquakes and said it had granted every request made by the Trump administration as part of U.S. relief efforts.

The fallout between the White House and Ms. Machado represents one of the starkest examples of how Mr. Trump is scrambling the United States’ once-ironclad international stances, empowering former adversaries, ditching allies and prioritizing business deals.

The breakdown of Ms. Machado’s longstanding alliance with the United States government follows months of growing tensions over how Venezuela should be governed after the downfall of Mr. Maduro, their common enemy.

After U.S. forces arrested Mr. Maduro in January, the Trump administration chose a gradualist approach. The United States has recognized the fallen autocrat’s vice president, Ms. Rodríguez, as the new leader. The Trump administration wants the country opened up to American investors, with the view of calling free elections at a later, undetermined date.

Ms. Machado, conversely, has pushed for an immediate political transition, arguing that the stolen presidential election gave her a mandate to power.

Mr. Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio have for months personally advised Ms. Machado to delay her return. The U.S. officials have presented their arguments in terms of personal security, saying that they could not guarantee her safety.

In private, some U.S. officials and people close to the White House said Ms. Machado’s return would greatly complicate the Trump administration’s deepening alliance with Ms. Rodríguez. Mr. Trump has repeatedly called that relationship a great success.

These strategic differences, the people familiar with the discussions said, reached a breaking point following Wednesday’s twin earthquakes that killed at least 1,900 people and devastated parts of the country’s coast.

Following the disaster, Ms. Machado has pointedly escalated efforts to insert herself back into Venezuela’s political life. She has personally written to multiple people in the U.S. government, including the State Department and Congress, asking for their support in facilitating her return, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The person said this outreach produced a tepid response, with some officials expressing annoyance at what they perceived as Ms. Machado’s impatience and seeming desire to exploit the disaster for political gain.

In Panama, Ms. Machado has made increasingly forceful public statements announcing her imminent return. In an address on Monday she claimed that the government had “closed the airspace of our country to impede” her return.

Flight tracking data, however, showed that Venezuela’s provincial airports received commercial flights in the hours before and after her claim. (Venezuela’s principal airport near capital Caracas has been closed to all commercial traffic following the earthquake because of widespread damage).

Ms. Machado’s claims of imminent return have stoked intense discussions within Venezuela’s government about how to respond if she shows up at the border, according to people close to the government.

Some officials have argued that turning her away in a public manner would damage Ms. Rodríguez’s efforts to rebrand the deeply unpopular ruling party as a more inclusive and tolerant movement.

Other members of the ruling circle, however, worry that Ms. Machado’s return could destabilize their power and unleash a new period of strife in a country that has lurched from one violent political crisis to another for decades.

Ms. Rodríguez’s government has already been widely criticized for the slow and insufficient disaster response and for exploiting the tragedy for its own propaganda purposes. Increasingly angry residents have booed, and in some instances, chased away public officials from buildings destroyed by the quakes.

Ms. Machado’s return would likely to inflame discontent further, some people close to Ms. Rodríguez have argued.

This argument has found supporters in the Trump administration, which has doubled down on its support for Ms. Rodríguez following the earthquake. Before the disaster struck, Mr. Trump claimed repeatedly that U.S. intervention had brought record riches and even widespread happiness to Venezuela, where people dismissed such talk as nonsense. The earthquakes are shaping up as the biggest test yet of U.S. involvement.

Ms. Machado retains support among various State Department officials, including Chris Landau, the deputy secretary of state, and Republican members of Congress, according to the people familiar with the matter. But her decision to escalate her return campaign has severely damaged her relationship with U.S. officials who ultimately make decisions in the Trump administration, the person said.

Adriana Loureiro Fernandez contributed reporting from La Guaira, Venezuela.