Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who received the Nobel Peace Prize last year, has presented her award to U.S. President Donald Trump. The handover took place during a meeting at the White House on January 15, Reuters reported.
“I told him: ‘Two hundred years ago, General Lafayette presented the President of the United States with a medal bearing the image of George Washington for [the Latin American revolutionary] Simón Bolívar, and Bolívar treasured it all his life. Exactly 200 years later, the people of Bolívar are returning the medal to Washington as a sign of recognition,’” Machado was quoted as saying by CNN.
Trump later published a post on his social media platform Truth Social thanking Machado, calling her “a wonderful woman who has been through a lot.”
The White House also released a photograph from the meeting between Machado and Trump.
As Reuters noted, officials in the U.S. administration confirmed to journalists that Trump intends to keep the medal.
After the United States captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Machado addressed her fellow citizens, saying that Venezuela needed to prepare for a “democratic transition” of power. The American president, however, declined to support her, stating that it was “hard for her to be a leader,” The Washington Post reported. According to the newspaper, this was explained by the fact that Machado did not hand over the Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, even though she had dedicated it in part to the U.S. leader when she received it.
María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2025. The Insider previously published a detailed profile of her.
