Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Maria Corina Machado on Saturday predicted that the leftist governments in Cuba and Nicaragua will fall once the “criminal regime” in Caracas is gone.

In early January, US special forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and brought him to the United States to stand trial on criminal charges. His former deputy Delcy Rodriguez is now the interim leader of the country.

She has promised a sweeping amnesty for political prisoners and pushed through oil industry reforms at the behest of Washington, which has allowed her to remain in power -- provided she toes the line.

“What’s taking place in Venezuela is huge in terms of the repercussions it’s already having in the region,” Machado, who lived in hiding for more than a year before receiving her Nobel prize in December, told the Munich Security Conference via videolink.

“Once we dismantle the regime, the criminal regime in Venezuela, Cuba will be next. Nicaragua will follow. For the first time in history, we will have the Americas free of communism and dictatorship,” Machado told the gathering in English.

Cuba, led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel, and Nicaragua, governed by Daniel Ortega and his co-president wife Rosario Murillo, are traditional allies of Venezuela.

When asked when she might return to her country, Machado said she was ready to go home, highlighting that she did not need Washington’s “permission” to do so, but conceding that there would be “coordination” on such a move.

Machado gave her Nobel medal to US President Donald Trump last month when the pair met in Washington, after he sidelined her in favor of Rodriguez.