Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize and immediately dedicated her award to Donald Trump. The 58-year-old, who has campaigned against President Nicolás Maduro's 12-year rule, told the US President during a congratulatory phone call how grateful Venezuelans are for his global peace efforts.
Machado told BBC Mundo she was "very glad" to speak to Trump and expressed appreciation for "what he's doing, not only in the Americas, but around the world for peace, for freedom, for democracy". She described her award as "like an injection" for her political movement, adding that "democrats around the world share our struggle".
Trump's Nobel ambitions
Trump has made no secret about wanting to win the Nobel Peace Prize himself, regularly speaking about wars he claims to have ended. According to the Daily Mail, he joked about Machado accepting the prize on his behalf and boasted about ending eight conflicts during his presidency.
Nominations for the award closed in January, just as his second term began. A White House official said on Friday the "Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace" after Trump was not selected for the prize.
Venezuelan opposition struggle
Machado was forced to live in hiding for much of the past year due to serious threats against her life from the Maduro government. The Nobel Committee hailed her as "one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times".
Nobel chairman Jørgen Watne Frydnes recognised her "struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy". Despite being barred from running in last year's presidential elections, she united the opposition and helped get millions behind replacement candidate Edmundo González.
The elections were widely dismissed internationally as neither free nor fair, sparking protests across the country. When the government-controlled National Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner, polling station tallies showed González had won by a landslide.
International implications
Machado told the BBC that Venezuela's regime is "a criminal structure" that sustains itself through drug trafficking, gold smuggling and other illicit activities. She believes international pressure to cut these criminal flows will cause the regime to collapse.
Earlier this month, US forces killed four people in an attack on a boat off Venezuela's coast allegedly involved in drug trafficking. The strikes have attracted international condemnation, with some lawyers describing them as breaches of international law.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro claimed one targeted boat was "Colombian with Colombian citizens inside", an allegation the White House called "baseless". The incidents represent an escalation in US actions against the Maduro government.
Sources used: "BBC", "Daily Mail"
Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
