The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, an international peace prize established according to the will of Alfred Nobel, was announced on 10 October 2025 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway. It was awarded to María Corina Machado of Venezuela. The prize was presented at the ceremony on 10 December 2025 in Oslo, given to her daughter on her behalf. The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised her as "one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times".
At the time of the prize's announcement, Machado was in hiding inside Venezuela, fearing repression from the government of Nicolás Maduro. She secretly escaped the country to reach Oslo with the help of international allies, but vowed to return to Venezuela to continue opposing the Maduro regime. Machado said she dedicated her award to Donald Trump and after the 2026 United States intervention in Venezuela she gave him her Nobel medal as a recognition of his commitment to Venezuela's freedom, according to Machado.
María Corina Machado
Machado was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1967. She established the Atenea Foundation in 1992 to help children in Caracas. In 2002, she was one of the founders of Súmate, an electoral monitoring group. Machado was an elected member of the National Assembly of Venezuela from 2010 to 2014 when she was expelled by Nicolás Maduro's government. In 2023, she announced her candidacy for the 2024 presidential election but she was blocked from running and supported the alternative candidacy of Edmundo González. Opposition parties mobilized to systematically document and monitor the election. Their results showed González as the winner, but Maduro's administration declared victory instead.
Machado is the second Venezuelan to receive a Nobel Prize after Venezuelan-born American Baruj Benacerraf, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Jean Dausset and George Davis Snell in 1980.
Award ceremony Before the ceremony and extraction from Venezuela Kristian Berg Harpviken, director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, confirmed with Maria Corina Machado on 5 December that she would attempt to attend the prize award ceremony on 10 December.
According to a later account reported by The Wall Street Journal, on 5 December, an operation funded by private donors contacted the Grey Bull Rescue Foundation based in the U.S. state of Florida, specialized in evacuation missions from warzones like Afghanistan and the Gaza Strip, to carry out Machado's extraction from Venezuela. The extraction mission was reportedly code-named Operation Golden Dynamite in reference to Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite and founder of the Nobel Prize. The final extraction plan consisted on transporting Machado through the country, to a beach, and then by boat reach Curaçao, in order to take a flight to Oslo, but the expedition faced several complications.
According to the same account, on 8 December Machado travelled by land through Venezuela in disguise, wearing a wig, crossing 10 military checkpoints without getting caught. Operatives took her to a fishing village to catch a rundown fishing boat. On 9 December, the boat had mechanical issues which delayed departure for 12 hours, leaving at sunset. Due to severe weather, Machado and the operatives encountered waves reported to be approximately high, and members of the crew suffered from motion sickness. During the trip communications were reportedly lost, the Global Positioning System (GPS) was thrown overboard and the backup systems malfunctioned. The meeting point with the Grey Bull rescue vessel was in the middle of the Gulf of Venezuela, which the boat finally reached after reestablishing communications at 23:00. From there, Machado was taken to Curaçao. Grey Bull contacted the authorities but the Dutch embassy refused to take part in the operation and Machado was only allowed to remain for 24 hours on the island. The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported later that Machado had fractured a vertebra during the trip.
On 9 December, the Nobel Institute canceled that evening's scheduled press conference with Machado, as her whereabouts were unknown at the time.
Machado reportedly went through customs in Curaçao and took a private jet to Miami on the morning of 10 December, and at 6:42 took a plane to Oslo. Most details of the operation became public only after the ceremony, when The Wall Street Journal published a detailed account of the extraction. Jørgen Watne Frydnes from the Norwegian Nobel Committee described the journey as "a situation of extreme danger".
During the ceremony
On the day of the ceremony, because of concerns regarding her safety, at first it was revealed that Machado would not have been able to attend the award ceremony, but hours later it was announced then that she would have arrived later in Oslo anyway, skipping the ceremony. Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, was present at the award ceremony and accepted the award on behalf of her mother, also delivering a speech written by the latter.
The speech covered the history of Venezuela. From independence, to the oil industry in the 20th century to the present day. Focus was given to the dismantling of democracy by Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, and the Venezuelan refugee crisis. The speech also recounted the events of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election where González won with 67 percent of the vote yet Maduro responded with "state terrorism". The speech ends naming those who shared the prize with her according to Machado, including the political prisoners, persecuted families, journalists, and human rights defenders.
The ceremony was attended by Edmundo González and by Argentinian president Javier Milei, Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa, Panamanian president José Raúl Mulino and Paraguayan president Santiago Peña. This was the largest number of heads of state to attend a Nobel ceremony since the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the European Union.
The Venezuelan singer Danny Ocean and Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero performed during the award ceremony. Ocean played a song that blended "Alma llanera", considered popularly as the second anthem of Venezuela, and "", which has become popular with the Venezuelan diaspora. Montero played the national anthem "Gloria al Bravo Pueblo", as well as Simón Díaz's "Mi querencia".
After the ceremony
Machado arrived to Oslo late at night after the award ceremony. She was received by crowd at the Grand Hotel, where Nobel laureates are hosted. She addressed the crowd with a brief speech.
On 11 December, the Nobel Committee held a press conference with Machado. She vowed to return to Venezuela and "to end with this tyranny very soon and have a free Venezuela". Machado also expressed support for the Trump administration's push to oust Maduro.
The same day Machado opened the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize Exhibition, exposing pictures of the Venezuelan refugee crisis in Colombia during 2025, taken by Turkish photographer Emin Özmen. Venezuelan-born Swedish singer Omar Rudberg performed the song "Venezuela" during the opening.
Nobel medal aftermath
Following the United States intervention in Venezuela on 3 January 2026. The Venezuelan diaspora hoped for the United States government to allow Machado to assume leadership in the country. Nonetheless, Donald Trump sidelined this activist, alleging that she did not have the respect of Venezuelans; he communicated that instead, the American administration would coordinate with Delcy Rodríguez. White House officials privately stated that the reason for choosing Rodríguez was that the Nobel laureate accepted the award, stating that if Machado had rejected the title, the United States government would have authorized her to lead Venezuela.
Machado offered to share her Nobel prize with U.S. president Donald Trump, to thank him on behalf of the Venezuelan people. She said in an interview "What he has done is historic. It's a huge step towards a democratic transition." The Nobel Prize Committee rejected her request and clarified that the prize "cannot be revoked, shared or transferred". The Nobel Committee has reiterated that while ownership of the physical award can change, the title does not; therefore Trump is not a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
On 15 January 2026, Machado had a lunch meeting with Trump in which she presented her Nobel Prize medal as a gift in recognition of what she called his commitment to the freedom of the Venezuelan people. Trump confirmed he would keep the medal, writing in Truth Social "Maria presented me with her Nobel Peace Prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect. Thank you Maria!" The White House posted a photo with Machado and Trump holding a frame containing the medal with the legends "To President Donald J. Trump In Gratitude for Your Extraordinary Leadership in Promoting Peace through Strength," and "Personal Symbol of Gratitude on behalf of the Venezuelan People." Speaking to reporters, Machado compared the handover of her medal to Marquis de Lafayette handing over a gold medallion with the face of George Washington to Venezuelan independence hero Simón Bolívar in 1825, as "a sign of the brotherhood between the people of the U.S. and the people of Venezuela in their fight for freedom against tyranny".
Reactions
To the announcement
Venezuela On Twitter, Machado dedicated the prize to the "suffering people of Venezuela" and to U.S. president Donald Trump "for his decisive support of our cause". In Venezuela, state-run media ignored the Nobel Peace Prize announcement or downplayed its significance, stating that the Norwegian Nobel Foundation was controlled by the "international right" and alleging Machado had plotted a coup d'état.
On 13 October, the Venezuelan foreign ministry announced the closure of the embassy of Venezuela in Norway. Oslo called the decision "regrettable".
In November, Venezuela's attorney general Tarek William Saab expressed that Machado would become a fugitive if she attended the award ceremony in Norway.
International
In the United States, officials of the second Trump administration were strongly critical of the award not being given to Trump, who for months had expressed his desire to win the prize. Steven Cheung, the White House Communications Director, stated, "The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace." Richard Grenell, Trump's envoy for Venezuela, declared that the "Nobel Prize died years ago". President Trump himself praised Machado following her selection, and Machado said that Trump was a worthy winner for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. Sources close to Trump later told The Washington Post that her decision to accept the award effectively destroyed Trump's support for her possible presidency; after the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro, one of those sources said that, if Machado had "turned it down and said, 'I can't accept it because it's Donald Trump's,' she'd be the president of Venezuela today." Trump cited his perceived snub as a factor in his escalation of efforts to acquire Greenland on behalf of the United States, writing in a letter to Norwegian prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre on 18 January 2026 that "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant [emphasis in original]."