{"id":287065,"date":"2026-01-16T06:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T06:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287065\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T06:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T06:12:09","slug":"maria-corina-machado-presents-trump-with-her-nobel-peace-prize-medal-maria-corina-machado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/287065\/","title":{"rendered":"Mar\u00eda Corina Machado presents Trump with her Nobel peace prize medal | Mar\u00eda Corina Machado"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Venezuelan opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado<\/a> has presented her gold Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump after meeting him in the White House, nearly a fortnight after he ordered the abduction of Venezuela\u2019s president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n

Machado, who received the award last year for her struggle against Maduro\u2019s \u201cbrutal, authoritarian state\u201d<\/a>, told reporters on Thursday she had done so \u201cin recognition [of] his unique commitment [to] our freedom\u201d.<\/p>\n

Several hours later, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Machado \u201cpresented me with her Nobel peace prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

A photograph circulated later by the White House showed the US president with the gift displayed in a large frame. Inside the gold frame beneath the medal, a text read: \u201cPresented as a personal symbol of gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan people in recognition of President Trump\u2019s principled and decisive action to secure a free Venezuela<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day the Nobel organizers posted on X: \u201cA medal can change owners, but the title of a Nobel peace prize laureate cannot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Machado, whose movement is widely believed to have beaten Maduro in Venezuela\u2019s 2024 election, was unexpectedly sidelined by Trump after US special forces troops captured her political rival in the early hours of 3 January.<\/p>\n

Opposition supporters hoped Trump would recognise the 58-year-old conservative politician as Venezuela\u2019s new leader after Maduro\u2019s downfall but instead he gave the nod to the dictator\u2019s second-in-command, the vice-president Delcy Rodr\u00edguez, who was subsequently sworn in as acting president.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, in an apparent attempt to win back Trump\u2019s favour, Machado told reporters she had \u201cpresented\u201d her Norwegian medal to the US president during a private meeting.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the organisers of the Nobel peace prize announced the award could not be \u201cshared or transferred\u201d<\/a> after Machado told Fox News she wished to \u201cshare\u201d it with Trump. \u201cThe decision is final and stands for all time,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n

Even so, Machado went ahead with her symbolic gesture \u2013 a move analysts saw as an attempt to salvage her movement\u2019s waning hopes of taking power now that Maduro was out of the picture and behind bars in New York.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters, Machado compared handing her medal to Trump to how, in 1825, the Marquis de Lafayette sent a gold medal featuring an image of George Washington to the South American independence hero Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar. Machado called Lafayette\u2019s gift \u201ca sign of the brotherhood between the people of the US and the people of Venezuela in their fight for freedom against tyranny\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision not to back Machado after removing Maduro was reportedly the consequence of curdling relations between her and members of Trump\u2019s team, as well as concerns her movement would be unable to control the security situation in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

The White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday: \u201cThe president\u2019s assessment was based on realities on the ground. It was a realistic assessment based on what the president was reading and hearing from his national security team. At this moment in time his opinion on that matter has not changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mar\u00edaMar\u00eda Corina Machado says she presented Donald Trump with her Nobel peace prize medal \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Machado is not the first Nobel laureate to divest themselves of the award.<\/p>\n

After winning the 1954 Nobel prize in literature, Ernest Hemingway entrusted his medal to the Catholic Church in Cuba \u2013 where it was briefly stolen<\/a> from a sanctuary in 1986 before Ra\u00fal Castro ordered its return.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov auctioned<\/a> his medal to raise money for Ukrainian child refugees. Leon Lederman, who won the 1988 Nobel prize for physics, sold his<\/a> after it had spent 20 years \u201csitting on a shelf somewhere\u201d.<\/p>\n

But the Venezuelan politician appears to be the first person to give away her medal for such explicitly political reasons.<\/p>\n

Just hours after Trump announced Maduro\u2019s rendition, he threw a bucket of ice cold water on opposition hopes that its leaders would immediately fill his shoes, calling Machado \u201ca very nice woman [who] \u2026 doesn\u2019t have the support or the respect within the country\u201d to take power.<\/p>\n

Trump had kinder words for Maduro\u2019s vice-president, Rodr\u00edguez, declaring: \u201cShe\u2019s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump subsequently sought to lower expectations that a fresh election could be held in the near future. \u201cWe have to fix the country first. You can\u2019t have an election. There\u2019s no way the people could even vote,\u201d he told NBC News two days after Maduro was captured.<\/p>\n

Speaking before Thursday\u2019s high-stakes meeting, Leavitt told reporters Trump was looking forward to \u201ca good and positive discussion\u201d with Machado, who she called \u201ca remarkable and brave voice for many of the people of Venezuela\u201d. Trump hoped to discuss \u201cthe realities on the ground\u201d in Venezuela.<\/p>\n

Leavitt said Rodr\u00edguez and other key members of her \u201cinterim administration\u201d were in constant communication with their US counterparts and were being \u201cextremely cooperative\u201d. \u201cThey have thus far met all the demands and the requests of the United States and of the president,\u201d she said, pointing to the release of five US citizens from Venezuelan jails this week.<\/p>\n

Leavitt said Trump was committed to \u201chopefully\u201d seeing fresh elections in Venezuela \u201cone day\u201d. \u201cBut I don\u2019t have an updated timetable for you today,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez indicated she was keen to reboot US-Venezuela ties on Thursday, during the annual state of the union address in Caracas, which she delivered on Maduro\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n

Addressing an audience including Maduro\u2019s son and three sisters, Rodr\u00edguez called Trump\u2019s invasion \u201cthe greatest ever stain on US-Venezuela relations\u201d and said Washington had \u201ccrossed a red line\u201d by invading the South American country, killing Venezuelans and \u201ckidnapping\u201d the president.<\/p>\n

However, Rodr\u00edguez said she was prepared to travel to Washington to engage in a \u201cdiplomatic battle\u201d with the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cVenezuela has the right to relations with China, with Russia, with Cuba, with Iran \u2026 and with the United States too,\u201d she told lawmakers and military chiefs who had gathered in the national assembly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it one days falls to me, as acting president, to go to Washington, I\u2019ll do it standing tall, not crawling,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez added despite Trump\u2019s recent claim to be \u201crunning\u201d Venezuela.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Venezuelan opposition leader Mar\u00eda Corina Machado has presented her gold Nobel peace prize medal to Donald Trump…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[18,117,19,17,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-287065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115903302481553069","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}