Famous Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado presented her Nobel Peace Prize medal to U.S. President Donald Trump during a meeting at the White House on Thursday, framing the gesture as recognition of his “unique commitment” to Venezuela’s freedom.
The moment came weeks after a controversial U.S. military operation resulted in the capture of Venezuela’s sitting president, Nicolás Maduro, who now faces drug-trafficking charges in New York.
“I think today is a historic day for us Venezuelans,” Machado said following her first in-person meeting with Trump, a gathering that showed her faction’s reliance on American support amid Venezuela’s ongoing political crisis.
President Trump acknowledged the gesture on social media, calling it “a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.” After departing the White House, Machado addressed supporters gathered outside, assuring them in Spanish, “We can count on President Trump.”
Speaking to journalists in English afterward, Machado elaborated on the symbolism, drawing a direct parallel to 19th-century revolutionary history.
Machado Explains her Gesture
She recounted how the Marquis de Lafayette, a French hero of the American Revolutionary War, once gave a medal bearing George Washington’s likeness to Simón Bolívar, a founding father of modern Venezuela. Machado framed her gift as a reciprocation of that historic “brotherhood.”
“And 200 years later,” she stated, “the people of Bolívar are giving back to the heir of Washington a medal, in this case a medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, as a recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom.”
The gesture, however, exists in a curious tension with the formal rules governing the Nobel Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee issued a statement last week clarifying that “once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others.” The decision, the committee stressed, “is final and stands for all time.”
When asked by the BBC for comment on Machado’s action, the committee directed attention back to that prior statement. Earlier on Thursday, the Nobel Peace Center had posted on X, emphasizing that while “a medal can change owners, the title of a Nobel laureate cannot.”
How Complicated is this Alliance?
Notably, President Trump has stopped short of formally endorsing Machado as Venezuela’s legitimate leader, despite her movement’s claim of victory in the widely disputed 2024 Venezuelan elections. The meeting and the symbolic gift instead highlight a strategic, though diplomatically ambiguous, alliance.
The exchange, a physical token of the highest peace honor given to a U.S. president who has embraced militarized regime change, encapsulates the deeply polarized international response to the Venezuela crisis.
For Machado’s supporters, it is an act of profound gratitude. For critics, it is a stark illustration of opposition dependence on foreign power. For the Nobel institution, it is a symbolic transfer that it officially does not recognize.
