Venezuelan opposition chief and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado waves to supporters exterior the White Home following a gathering with U.S. President Donald Trump on January 15, 2026 in Washington, DC.
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Norwegian lawmakers reacted with shock and dismay over Venezuela opposition chief María Corina Machado’s choice to current U.S. President Donald Trump together with her Nobel Peace Prize medal.
“It is utterly unparalleled,” Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor of worldwide politics on the College of Oslo and former state secretary within the international affairs ministry, instructed public broadcaster NRK on Friday.
She known as Machado’s gesture “disrespectful” and “pathetic,” saying it undermined the worth of the prize, which the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards yearly.
Raymond Johansen, a Norwegian lawmaker for the center-left Labour Social gathering and former governing mayor of Oslo, mentioned in a Fb put up it was “extremely embarrassing and damaging to one of many world’s most revered and necessary prizes,” in keeping with a Google translation.
Machado, who met Trump on the White Home for the primary time on Thursday, mentioned the reward to the U.S. president was a “profound expression of gratitude for the invaluable assist of President Trump and the USA to the Venezuelan folks.” It comes after a U.S. army operation seized Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, on Jan. 3.
The U.S. president thanked Machado on social media, describing it as a “great gesture of mutual respect.” The White Home later posted a photograph of Trump and Machado, with the U.S. president holding up a big, gold-colored body displaying the medal.
A bust of Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) is pictured exterior the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway on January 8, 2026.
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The Nobel Peace Heart, a museum in Norway’s capital devoted to the Nobel Peace Prize, mentioned in a put up on X: “A medal can change homeowners, however the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate can’t.”
The Norwegian Nobel Committee and the Norwegian Nobel Institute had beforehand mentioned: “The details are clear and effectively established. As soon as a Nobel Prize is introduced, it can’t be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The choice is closing and stands all the time.”
“Whoever has obtained the prize has obtained the prize,” Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, chief of Norway’s Centre Social gathering, instructed NRK. “The truth that Trump accepts the medal says one thing about him as a sort: a basic scapegoat who will adorn himself with different folks’s awards and work,” he added.
The White Home was not instantly obtainable to remark when contacted by CNBC on Friday.
‘Politics over peace’
Trump has steadily spoken about his want to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The White Home responded to the Nobel Committee’s choice to award Machado the medal in October final yr by saying they’d “proved they place politics over peace.”
Some Norwegian lawmakers appeared joyful to brush off Machado’s gesture, nevertheless, saying it shouldn’t be seen as a sign of who the award rightfully belongs to.
Dag-Inge Ulstein, chief of Norway’s center-right Christian Democratic Social gathering, instructed NRK that there’s “little doubt” that the Nobel Peace Prize nonetheless belongs to Machado.
Ine Eriksen Søreide, Norway’s former protection minister and a member of the center-right Conservative Social gathering, agreed with Ulstein.
“Despite the fact that Trump has now obtained the medal, it doesn’t imply that he has obtained the Peace Prize,” Søreide mentioned.
