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 able of authority to find out who may lead the South American nation, Machado positioned her just lately gained 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 relating to 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 satisfy Maria Corina Machado, of Venezuela, at the moment. She is an excellent lady who has been via a lot,” Trump wrote in a submit on his Reality Social platform on Thursday.
“Maria introduced me along with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I’ve carried out. Such a beautiful gesture of mutual respect. Thanks Maria!”
Why did Machado win the Prize?
Machado, 58, is the chief of the Venezuelan opposition get together, Vente Venezuela. She can also be one among Maduro’s staunchest critics.
In 2023, she gained the Venezuelan opposition’s presidential main, putting her in a primary place to problem longtime chief Maduro within the 2024 presidential elections.
Nonetheless, Venezuela’s high court docket, the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, upheld a ban stopping Machado from operating for workplace. The court docket backed authorities claims that she supported US sanctions, was linked to a weapons plot via her get together and had helped trigger losses to Venezuelan belongings just like the US-based oil refiner Citgo and chemical compounds 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 gained 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 specialists. 9 Latin American international locations demanded a evaluate of the election ends in the presence of unbiased 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 asserting her win, the Nobel Committee stated 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 want 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 could 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 stated, “Everybody says I ought to get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
Trump added, “I ended seven wars. No president or prime minister has ever carried out something near that.” The wars he claimed to have ended embrace 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 for the reason that ceasefire got here into impact on October 10; and tensions stay excessive between India and Pakistan.
Trump has brazenly 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 submit on January 7.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which determines who wins the prize, is unbiased 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: “Offered 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 instructed reporters it was “glorious” 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?
Underneath the statutes of the Nobel Basis, a Nobel Prize can’t be revoked, reallocated, or transferred to a different individual. As soon as a prize has been awarded, the choice is remaining and everlasting.
The statutes of the Nobel Basis are the formal guidelines that govern how the Nobel system works in observe.
Whereas Trump can maintain the bodily prize, it has nonetheless been awarded to Machado, which is a choice that can proceed to face.
The Nobel Peace Middle account on X, the official account of the museum concerning the Nobel Peace Prize, reiterated this in an X submit on Wednesday.
“A medal can change homeowners, however the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate can not,” the submit 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 assist inside or the respect inside the nation. She’s a really good lady, however she doesn’t have the respect,” Trump stated about Machado throughout a information convention on January 3.
On January 4, The Washington Submit reported, quoting two nameless sources near the White Home, that Trump had withheld assist from Machado as a result of he was upset that she had accepted the Nobel – despite the fact that she had devoted it to him – as an alternative of refusing it.
Certainly one of these folks stated Machado accepting the award was the “final sin”, whereas the opposite individual instructed the Submit: “If she had turned it down and stated, ‘I can’t settle for it as a result of it’s Donald Trump’s,’ she’d be the president of Venezuela at the moment.”
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.
Through the assembly between Machado and Trump, White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that whereas Trump had been wanting ahead to assembly Machado, he stood by his “real looking” view that Machado lacks the backing required to guide the nation for now.
In the meantime, Trump spoke to Rodriguez over a telephone name on Wednesday. In a submit on Reality Social that day, Trump described the decision as “excellent”.
“Many subjects had been mentioned, together with Oil, Minerals, Commerce and, after all, Nationwide Safety. This partnership between the US of America and Venezuela will probably 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 geared toward benefitting each international locations.
Machado left the White Home carrying an official present bag – a purple 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.
