Maria Colina Machado awarded President Trump the Nobel Peace Prize after the US leader detained Nicolas Maduro.
Published April 18, 2026
Venezuela’s main opposition leader Maria Colina Machado said she has “no regrets” about presenting US President Donald Trump with the Nobel Peace Prize medal.
Machado, the 2025 recipient of the prestigious award, presented the award’s accompanying medal when he met with President Trump at the White House in January, two weeks after the president ordered U.S. special forces to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas.
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Trump’s military operation to remove Maduro, who is currently in U.S. custody on drug trafficking charges, is “something we Venezuelans will never forget,” Maduro said at a news conference in Madrid on Saturday, according to AFP.
“We have a world leader, a head of state, who risked the lives of his own people for the freedom of Venezuela,” she said.
President Trump, who has long publicly coveted the Nobel Peace Prize, called Machado’s award of the medal “a great gesture of mutual respect.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which honored Venezuela’s tireless campaign to restore democratic rights and its struggle to achieve a peaceful transition from authoritarian rule, made it clear after the handover that the prize is non-transferable and cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to another person.
Machado, who lived in hiding until leaving Venezuela in December to collect his prize in Oslo, said he was coordinating with Washington about his return.
The United States holds the key to the “democratic transition”
“I am speaking with the U.S. government and we are working together with mutual respect and understanding,” he said, adding that he believed the U.S. government was “key to advancing Venezuela’s democratic transition.”
But President Trump publicly questioned Machado’s position, calling her a “very fine woman” but saying she lacked “respect” in Venezuela. Instead, he supported Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice president, as interim leader.
Venezuela’s opposition last week called for presidential elections. Machado, who was barred from running in the contentious 2024 vote that returned Maduro to power, has not yet said whether he will run in future votes.
While in Spain, Machado refused to meet with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, citing the latter’s hosting of a progressive summit in Barcelona as evidence that the meeting was “unwise”. Sanchez said he would like to meet her any time.
This disdain stands in contrast to her frequent encounters with Sánchez’s right-wing opponents.
