Trump’s team keen to unite anti-dictatorship exiles, Nicaragua dissident says

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By Gabriela Selser

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Members of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team reached out to a leading Nicaraguan opposition figure on Thursday, saying they want to unite exiled communities from Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela, the opposition figure said.

Miami-based Felix Maradiaga, head of Nicaragua’s Freedom Foundation and a vocal critic of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, told Reuters he received a “courtesy call” from Trump representatives seeking to “open communication channels with the incoming administration.”

He added that he also recently met Trump campaign officials in Chicago.

Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

In the wake of Trump’s win in Tuesday’s U.S. election, Maradiaga said members of the future president’s team had contacted him, keen to “strengthen cohesion” among Nicaraguan opposition members and with exiled communities from Cuba and Venezuela. Maradiaga said he would soon meet with those handling Latin American foreign policy and security for the Trump administration.

“They told us that they are interested in having the opponents of Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela unite our points of view in the face of three similar dictatorships, so that the actions that come from the United States have a joint impact in the quest for democracy,” Maradiaga said.

Maradiaga, a former presidential candidate, was imprisoned by Ortega in 2021. He was one of 222 dissidents expelled to the U.S. in February 2023, stripped of Nicaraguan nationality.

The opposition coalition Platform for Unity and Democracy, to which Maradiaga belongs, urged Trump to maintain support for Nicaraguan migrants fleeing political repression.

Humanitarian groups estimate nearly a million Nicaraguans have emigrated since 2018 due to political persecution and economic hardship.

(Reporting by Gabriela Selser, writing by Sarah Kinosian; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)