Despite President Donald Trump’s campaign for the honor, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was not, in fact, awarded to a leader who saw his Department of Defense converted into a Department of War.
Rather, the prize has been awarded to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan movement builder and politician who has worked to organize against the controlling regime of South American nation’s current president, Nicolás Maduro.
The award was given “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela, and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
Though the White House responded to the decision with derision – claiming “the Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace” – Machado’s work on behalf of her fellow Venezuelans over the years makes it an honor well-earned.
Machado, a former member of the Venezuelan National Assembly, is the founder of both a voting rights nonprofit and an organization tasked with helping impoverished children. The 58-year-old industrial engineer also attempted to unseat Maduro, regarded by many as a dictator with an illegitimate claim to power, in last year’s elections. When he retained control in a widely derided election, Machado went into hiding.
“In the face of ever-expanding authoritarianism in Venezuela,” Machado’s work merits recognition, the committee added of its decision. For her efforts over the years, Machado has been given other honors, too – named to BBC’s 100 Women in 2018, and Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, also this year.
Whether or not she’ll be able to accept the award in person remains unclear, however. “This is the discussion we have every year for all candidates, particularly when the person who receives the prize is, in fact, in hiding because of serious threats to her life,” Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, noted.
