Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a decision blasted by supporters of President Donald Trump, who had overtly campaigned for the honor. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it chose Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
Machado “keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness,” the committee said.
The decision followed weeks of public speculation about Trump’s prospects.
In June, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do.”
“They’ll have to do what they do,” he said Thursday. “Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that. I did it because I saved a lot of lives.”
What Trump and his advocates said
After the announcement, White House communications chief Steven Cheung said the Nobel panel chose “politics over peace” and argued that Trump “will continue making peace deals, ending wars and saving lives,” The Daily Beast reported.
Conservative influencers on X also criticized the decision.
“What an absolute joke,” right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who is close to Trump, wrote. “Everyone knows President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. More affirmative action nonsense.”
A pro-Trump X account, MAGA Voice, described Machado as “some random person that nobody knows.”
“THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE IS A JOKE,” said a post distributed to the account’s 1.3 million followers. “Anyone with a brain knows Donald Trump should have won. TRUMP COULD HAVE CURED CANCER. SUCH A JOKE.”
Ahead of the announcement on X, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed his support by writing, “Give @realDonaldTrump the Nobel Peace Prize — he deserves it!”
Netanyahu is among those who credited Trump with the tentative deal to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Why the committee chose Machado
The Nobel Committee framed the award as a message in a period when “democracy is in retreat,” citing Venezuela’s repression, mass poverty and a humanitarian crisis that has driven nearly 8 million people to leave the country. It praised Machado’s role in uniting a once-fractured opposition around demands for free elections and representative government.
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund holds roughly 40% of its investments in U.S. markets.
The committee’s biography also notes she cofounded Súmate to promote free and fair elections, won a National Assembly seat in 2010 before being expelled in 2014 and later led the Vente Venezuela party and the Soy Venezuela alliance.
In 2023, she announced a presidential bid but was barred from running. She then backed Edmundo González Urrutia in 2024.
The Washington Post described Machado as a central figure of democratic resistance who swept the 2024 opposition primaries. Her movement organized to support González and gathered copies of more than 80% of machine receipts to substantiate its claim of victory, even as authorities detained aides and briefly detained her.
Winning phone call
Machado, who remains in Venezuela despite threats, learned of the prize minutes before the public announcement.
“I’m honored, humbled and very grateful on behalf of the Venezuelan people … we’re not there yet … but I’m sure that we will prevail,” she told the committee’s secretary, according to a transcript of the notification call.
Machado also posted on X about the prize and dedicated it to Trump, saying, “I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”
How officials handled potential fallout
The Nobel committee’s decision placed Oslo in an “uncomfortable spotlight,” with Norwegian media and officials bracing for diplomatic and economic blowback from a Trump snub, Bloomberg reported.
The country’s foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, quickly reiterated that the government does not interfere with the independent Nobel panel’s decisions. The concern was not just diplomatic; The Daily Beast reported that a Norwegian trade minister was in Washington this week attempting to negotiate a reduction in a 15% U.S. tariff.
Additionally, Norway’s $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, has approximately 40% of its investments in U.S. markets.
