Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on Thursday “presented” her Nobel Peace Prize medal to US President Donald Trump, who has openly coveted the award that the Nobel committee says cannot be transferred.
“I presented the president of the United States the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize,” Machado told reporters outside the US Capitol after her White House meeting with Trump.
Machado, whom Trump had earlier dismissed as unfit to lead Venezuela, did not clarify if Trump kept it, AFP reported.
She compared it to the gesture by Marquis de Lafayette, the French officer who helped the United States in the Revolutionary War against Britain, and handed a medal to Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan who led a wave of successful independence fights against Spain.
Drawing on this comparison, Machado said that after two hundred years, the people of Bolivar are giving back the medal to the “heir of Washington.” Presenting the medal of the Nobel Peace Prize, Machado reportedly called it a recognition for Trump’s “unique commitment to our freedom,” she said.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has earlier clarified that the prestigious medal cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others. In a statement on X it said that the name of the winner “stands for all time” even if the medal physically changes hands.
Trump has long expressed that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and was dismissive of Machado when she won it.
Machado met President Trump on Thursday, marking their first meeting. The meeting, which went a little over an hour, was termed “great” by Machado. She also offered a positive reaction to the meeting, saying, “We are counting on President Trump for freedom in Venezuela.”
“President Trump knows the situation in Venezuela; he cares about how the people of Venezuela are suffering,” she was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, Trump said that Machado does not command the “respect” to lead Venezuela.
Rather than working with Machado, Trump has previously vowed to work with interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, by threatening her with force if she does not comply with key US demands, starting with benefiting US oil firms.
