Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, 58, who remains confident she will become president “when the time is right” despite being sidelined by the United States after the ouster of Nicolas Maduro, presented President Donald Trump with a Nobel Peace Prize medal on Thursday.
Trump pushed hard for last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, citing his role in ending eight wars. But the prize was instead awarded to Maria Corina Machado, who traveled to Oslo last month to receive it after making a daring escape from Venezuela by boat. It remains unclear whether Trump kept the medal after their meeting at the White House, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award could not be transferred.
By contrast, Machado, who has campaigned for years to end Maduro’s rule, received a tumultuous welcome from jubilant supporters in Washington.
Machado says Trump “deserves it.”
“He deserves it. And it was a very emotional moment, I decided to present the Nobel Peace Prize medal on behalf of the people of Venezuela,” Machado said, according to AFP.
She said she was confident that Venezuela would experience a smooth transition after the U.S. ousted Maduro and that free and fair elections would eventually be held. Machado also insisted at a press conference a day after she presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal that she would return to Venezuela as soon as possible in her meeting with him, according to Reuters.
Speaking at an event in Washington, she mentioned, “We are definitely now at the first steps of a real transition to democracy” and said it would have a “huge impact on the lives of all Venezuelans,” including the entire region and the world, according to AFP.
Meanwhile, Trump and acting President Delcy Rodriguez held their first phone conversation on Wednesday, after which the White House said it “likes what it sees” from her. But Rodriguez has made it clear that her administration will push back against Washington.
“We know they are very powerful … we are not afraid to confront them diplomatically, through political dialogue,” she said on Thursday.
At the time, she was delivering Nicolas Maduro’s state of the nation address to parliament as the longtime authoritarian leader remains jailed in New York on drug-trafficking charges.
