Venezuelan opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado said she presented her Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, though she did not say whether Trump accepted it.
Machado held a closed-door discussion with Trump on the future of her country after the capture of Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro. Machado also went to Capitol Hill, for a meeting in the Senate. Although the US President had dismissed Machado’s credibility and cast doubts on her popularity among her people, Machado said on Thursday she presented her medal to Trump as a “recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom”.
“We can count on President Trump,” she told reporters and crowds gathered outside the White House, prompting some to briefly chant “Thank you, Trump,” but she didn’t elaborate.
Machado had left Venezuela last year after being briefly detained in Caracas. Her party is widely believed to have won 2024 elections rejected by Maduro, but she is now on the sidelines as Trump has expressed his willingness to work with Venezuela’s interim President, Delcy, Rodriguez, Maduro’s No. 2.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday called Machado “a remarkable and brave voice” for the people of Venezuela, but also clarified that the meeting didn’t mean Trump’s opinion of her changed, calling it “a realistic assessment.” Trump has said it would be difficult for Machado to lead because she “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”
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Leavitt went on to say that Trump supported new Venezuelan elections “when the time is right” but did not say when he thought that might be.
Machado’s Washington trip began after US forces seized another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea that the Trump administration says had ties to Venezuela.
On Wednesday, Trump said he had a “great conversation” with Rodriguez, their first since Maduro’s ouster. “We had a call, a long call. We discussed a lot of things,” Trump said during an Oval Office bill signing. “And I think we’re getting along very well with Venezuela.”
Machado has remained in hiding even after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. She missed the ceremony but briefly reappeared in Oslo, Norway, in December after her daughter received the award on her behalf.
The industrial engineer and daughter of a steel magnate, Machado began challenging the ruling party in 2004, when the non-governmental organisation she co-founded, Súmate, promoted a referendum to recall then-President Hugo Chávez. The initiative failed, and Machado and other Súmate executives were charged with conspiracy.
A year later, she drew the anger of Chávez and his allies again for traveling to Washington to meet President George W Bush, whom Chávez considered an adversary.
Almost two decades later, she marshaled millions of Venezuelans to reject Chávez’s successor, Maduro, for another term in the 2024 election. But ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared him the winner despite ample credible evidence to the contrary. Ensuing anti-government protests ended in a brutal crackdown by state security forces.
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