Two weeks after United States particular forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, opposition chief Maria Corina Machado visited the White Home for her first in-person meeting with US President Donald Trump.
With Venezuela’s future unsure, and Trump seemingly ready of authority to find out who may lead the South American nation, Machado positioned her lately received Nobel Peace Prize within the fingers of a person who has coveted the award for years.
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The 2 posed for a photograph in entrance of the Declaration of Independence within the Oval Workplace, and Trump smiled massive as he clasped onto a big golden body encasing the medal.
However does the prize now belong to Trump, and will it change the US president’s plan of action in terms of Venezuela?
Did Trump settle for the Nobel Peace Prize?
ABC Information later quoted an unnamed White Home official confirming that Trump had agreed to maintain the award.
“It was my Nice Honor to fulfill Maria Corina Machado, of Venezuela, at this time. She is an excellent girl who has been via a lot,” Trump wrote in a put up on his Reality Social platform on Thursday.
“Maria introduced me together with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I’ve finished. Such a beautiful gesture of mutual respect. Thanks Maria!”
Why did Machado win the Prize?
Machado, 58, is the chief of the Venezuelan opposition occasion, Vente Venezuela. She can also be one in every of Maduro’s staunchest critics.
In 2023, she received the Venezuelan opposition’s presidential main, inserting her in a main place to problem longtime chief Maduro within the 2024 presidential elections.
Nonetheless, Venezuela’s prime courtroom, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, upheld a ban stopping Machado from working for workplace. The courtroom backed authorities claims that she supported US sanctions, was linked to a weapons plot via her occasion and had helped trigger losses to Venezuelan property just like the US-based oil refiner Citgo and chemical substances firm Monomeros, which operates in Colombia.
Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a diplomat, changed her as presidential candidate for the opposition bloc. Machado campaigned for him.
Nonetheless, Maduro received the election, persevering with to carry onto his presidential seat, which he has held since 2013. The election was disputed and earned widespread accusations of fraud from inside and outdoors Venezuela, together with from a panel of United Nations consultants. 9 Latin American international locations demanded a evaluate of the election leads to the presence of impartial observers.
After spending greater than a yr in hiding and defying a decade-long journey ban imposed by Venezuelan authorities, Machado secretly left Venezuela in December to journey to Oslo to gather her prize.
Whereas saying her win, the Nobel Committee mentioned Machado was “receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work selling democratic rights for the folks of Venezuela and for her battle to attain a simply and peaceable transition from dictatorship to democracy”.
Why did Machado give Trump the Nobel Prize?
Trump’s longstanding need to win the Nobel Peace Prize is well-known. Earlier than the prize for 2025 was introduced, Trump repeatedly instructed that he deserved to win it and claimed it will be a “massive insult” to the US if he didn’t.
Talking on the UN Common Meeting (UNGA) in New York in September 2025, Trump mentioned, “Everybody says I ought to get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Trump added, “I ended seven wars. No president or prime minister has ever finished something near that.” The wars he claimed to have ended embody conflicts between Cambodia and Thailand; Kosovo and Serbia; the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda; Pakistan and India; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan. Subsequently, Trump additionally oversaw the signing of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
In actuality, analysts have identified, a number of of those conflicts are nonetheless alive – Thailand and Cambodia have fired at one another since their truce; Israel has killed greater than 450 Palestinians in Gaza because the ceasefire got here into impact on October 10; and tensions stay excessive between India and Pakistan.
Trump has overtly expressed his frustration with not successful the Nobel Peace Prize. “I single-handedly ENDED 8 WARS, and Norway, a NATO Member, foolishly selected to not give me the Nobel Peace Prize,” Trump wrote in a Reality Social put up on January 7.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which determines who wins the prize, is impartial from the federal government of Norway.
The White Home posted an image of Trump and Machado with the framed prize. The textual content on the body learn: “Introduced as a private image of gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan folks, in recognition of President Trump’s principled and decisive motion in pursuit of a free Venezuela.”
After her assembly with Trump, Machado advised reporters it was “wonderful” and that she introduced Trump with the medal as “a recognition for his distinctive dedication with our freedom”.
Does that imply the Nobel Prize is Trump’s now?
Below the statutes of the Nobel Basis, a Nobel Prize can’t be revoked, reallocated, or transferred to a different particular person. As soon as a prize has been awarded, the choice is ultimate and everlasting.
The statutes of the Nobel Basis are the formal guidelines that govern how the Nobel system works in follow.
Whereas Trump can maintain the bodily prize, it has nonetheless been awarded to Machado, which is a call that can proceed to face.
The Nobel Peace Heart account on X, the official account of the museum in regards to the Nobel Peace Prize, reiterated this in an X put up on Wednesday.
“A medal can change homeowners, however the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate can not,” the put up says.
What does this imply for Venezuela?
On January 3, Maduro, 63, was kidnapped by particular forces of the US throughout an operation within the Latin American nation’s capital, Caracas.
Since his abduction, Venezuela has been confronted by questions over who will lead it – and whom Trump would again for the function.
The US president rapidly dominated out the potential of supporting Machado because the chief of Venezuela. “She doesn’t have the help inside or the respect inside the nation. She’s a really good girl, however she doesn’t have the respect,” Trump mentioned about Machado throughout a information convention on January 3.
On January 4, The Washington Publish reported, quoting two nameless sources near the White Home, that Trump had withheld help from Machado as a result of he was upset that she had accepted the Nobel – though she had devoted it to him – as a substitute of refusing it.
One among these folks mentioned Machado accepting the award was the “final sin”, whereas the opposite particular person advised the Publish: “If she had turned it down and mentioned, ‘I can’t settle for it as a result of it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela at this time.”
As a substitute, Trump has backed Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, who was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president. Rodriguez has expressed eagerness to work with the US.
In the course of the assembly between Machado and Trump, White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned that whereas Trump had been wanting ahead to assembly Machado, he stood by his “real looking” view that Machado lacks the backing required to steer the nation for now.
In the meantime, Trump spoke to Rodriguez over a cellphone name on Wednesday. In a put up on Reality Social that day, Trump described the decision as “superb”.
“Many matters have been mentioned, together with Oil, Minerals, Commerce and, after all, Nationwide Safety. This partnership between america of America and Venezuela can be a spectacular one FOR ALL. Venezuela will quickly be nice and affluent once more, maybe extra so than ever earlier than!”
Rodriguez described the dialog as lengthy, productive and courteous, saying they mentioned a bilateral agenda aimed toward benefitting each international locations.
Machado left the White Home carrying an official reward bag – a pink paper bag stamped with Trump’s gold facsimile signature. It was much less clear whether or not she departed with any higher sense of the place she stands in Washington’s plans for Venezuela’s future.
