When the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Venezuelan opposition politician and activist María Corina Machado, many liberals and progressives were keen to rub Donald Trump’s face in it, as the US President has long indicated – with a characteristic lack of subtlety – his desire for the award, and both he and sympathetic media had been lobbying the Norwegian Nobel Committee ahead of its decision.
It hardly need be explained just how absurd it is for Trump to expect a Nobel Peace Prize – not least because he has lately been using federal troops to invade US cities – although the prize has been bestowed upon worse people. But Trump’s ego aside, his administration is unlikely to be downcast by the decision to award the prize to Machado.
Mixed record
María Corina Machado, who won election to Venezuela’s National Assembly in 2010, is staunchly neoliberal, stridently anti-Chavismo and a devotee of Margaret Thatcher. She was arbitrarily removed from the legislature in 2014 for addressing the Organization of American States (OAS) regarding growing unrest in Venezuela. She subsequently played a role in 2014’s protest movement against the government, as a result of which she was arrested on the disputed charge of plotting to kill President Nicolas Maduro.
The charge didn’t stick, but Machado kept a low profile for the next few years. She implicitly endorsed Juan Guaido’s ill-fated US-backed attempt to decree himself interim president in 2019, announcing that she’d run for president if he called elections. In 2023, she won the opposition coalition’s presidential primary, but was subsequently banned from holding office, with the Venezuelan Supreme Court loyal to Maduro citing her support of Guaido and her 2014 anti-government activism.
As a long-time supporter of the US sanctions that have made Venezuela’s economic crisis so much worse and taken a heavy toll on its people, Machado has recently given no shortage of praise to Trump, the context for which is deeply disturbing.
Seeking regime change?
The Trump administration has for months now been increasing its military activity in the Caribbean Sea, including illegal missile strikes on Venezuelan fishing vessels on the pretext that they were engaged in narco-trafficking. This is despite the facts that almost no drug traffic into the US originates in Venezuela, and that Venezuela does not produce fentanyl, the dangerous culprit in most US overdose deaths. US Secretary of War and alleged drunkard Pete Hegseth now faces questions over his direct involvement in ordering war crimes in relation to these boat strikes.
On the same pretext of fighting Venezuelan drug cartels, the US has sent warships into the region and deployed F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico, all enthusiastically supported by Machado. Needless to say, if Venezuela or any other hostile nation sent warships into the Gulf of Mexico, the US wouldn’t take it kindly.
For his part, Venezuela’s authoritarian President Maduro has publicly accused the US – not unreasonably – of seeking regime change, and having previously bent over backwards, according to the New York Times, in attempts to appease Trump, Maduro has subsequently vowed to fight any US attempt to violate Venezuela’s sovereignty. His government recently requested an emergency session of the UN Security Council to address the escalating situation.
In the last several weeks, tensions have grown to a point where, during a phone call with Maduro, Trump reportedly issued an ultimatum for the Venezuelan president to relinquish power and leave his country, suggesting that the US could be preparing for imminent military intervention.
The Nobel Committee’s decision to give the Peace Prize to Machado is bizarre for several reasons. Firstly, its description of Machado’s ‘tireless work promoting democratic rights’ ignores the fact that she supported the attempted coup against democratically elected President Hugo Chávez in 2002. As mentioned, she also supported Guaido’s attempted coup against Maduro in 2019; whatever one may think of the Maduro government, as of 2018 he was the democratically elected president, notwithstanding opposition accusations of rigging. Alongside her encouragement for Trump’s military escalation, this jars somewhat with the Committee’s description.
Were there no better candidates?
The awarding of the prize also came merely a week after activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, attempting to penetrate Israel’s maritime blockade and deliver essential aid to Gaza, were illegally kidnapped in international waters by Israeli forces. In at least some cases, such as that of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, detained crewmembers were subjected to inhuman and degrading conditions. The Global Sumud Flotilla, or perhaps Thunberg individually, would therefore seem a more fitting choice for the prize, yet the Committee opted for Machado.
That decision comes at a curiously fortuitous moment for both Machado and the US administration. Under a regime change scenario, it would now appear that the US has an internationally legitimised puppet to install as Venezuela’s new president. A Nobel Peace laureate lauded for her advocacy of democracy and who, to boot, favours privatising Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, which would open the country’s rich oil reserves to US companies.
It’s not for me to deny that Machado meets the conditions for the prize, but for her to be chosen out of 338 nominees feels somewhat suspicious, as if the committee is trying to pander to Trump without being so ridiculous as to give him the prize directly. It could hardly be better timing for Machado to become the face of regime change in Venezuela.
If indeed that transpires, any remaining credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize would be shredded; it would be impossible to take it seriously ever again.
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