Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado says she has no regrets about giving her Nobel Peace Prize medal to US President Donald Trump
MADRID: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said she had “no regrets” about symbolically handing her Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump.
“There is a leader in the world, a head of state in the world who risked the lives of his country’s citizens for Venezuela’s freedom,” she told a news conference in Madrid.
Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump at the White House in January, just weeks after he ordered US forces to attack Caracas and capture Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
She said Trump’s military operation to snatch Maduro, who now faces US drug charges in New York, was “something we Venezuelans will never forget”.
“Consequently, no, I have no regrets,” Machado stated about gifting the medal.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee clarified at the time that the honour itself “cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others”.
Machado, who was in hiding before leaving Venezuela in December to collect her 2025 prize in Oslo, said she was organising her return home in coordination with Washington.
She later told thousands of supporters at a Madrid gathering they should prepare to go back to Venezuela.
“Everything we have done over these long 27 years has been to prepare ourselves for a moment of reunion and of building a nation that will be free forever,” she said.
This period refers to the rule of Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chavez.
Venezuela’s opposition called for presidential elections last week.
Machado has not yet said if she would run in a future poll.
She was banned from running in the 2024 election, which resulted in Maduro’s re-election victory that opposition groups say was rigged.
