As the Nobel Peace Prize controversy 2025 deepens, Machado’s calls for military intervention in Venezuela fuel worldwide criticism and political tension.
This year, the Nobel Prize is being awarded not for peace, but for war.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, this year’s laureate, is actively pushing for a military intervention just hours before the ceremony—an operation aimed at forcibly removing President Nicolás Maduro from power.
“Maduro’s days are numbered,” declared Donald Trump. Since being announced as the winner, Machado has intensified her efforts in the United States to craft a plan for a post-Maduro Venezuela.
The first sign of an imminent intervention is Machado’s absence from the traditional pre-ceremony press conference. No one knows where she is. One can only imagine her at the Pentagon or aboard one of the warships encircling Venezuela.
Before her nomination, Trump had been considered the favorite for the prize, based on his fabricated claims that his negotiations had resolved numerous global conflicts. The pressure from Washington—and the worldwide outcry such an award would provoke—suggests that the U.S. may have relented, but only in exchange for Machado receiving the prize instead.
This, too, sparked international criticism, as Machado’s aggressive and militaristic rhetoric has alienated more progressive sectors.
She has openly called for U.S. intervention under Trump, despite the likelihood of significant loss of life. She has also not condemned the dozens of Venezuelans who have died from the United States’ ‘terrorist’ attacks on boats in the Pacific, even though international organizations and current or former members of the U.S. military have classified them as war crimes. Her ambition appears to outweigh her professed love for her country.
Under the title “Democracy on the Brink,” the organizers acknowledge that the choice is controversial, generating “unusual attention and strong reactions,” according to Henrik Treimo, the center’s director of exhibitions.
Although the exhibition—assembled in just over eight weeks after the Nobel Committee’s announcement—features items such as a photograph of a faded Hugo Chávez mural in Caracas, a bag made of nearly worthless bolivar bills, and a Venezuelan ballot, it also includes a room dedicated to the “cascade of conflicting opinions” surrounding this year’s laureate.
This is not going to end well. Machado is underestimating her own people. If she believes Venezuelans will welcome her arrival wrapped in an American flag, she is deeply mistaken.
Latin American nations have not forgotten the legacy of the Monroe Doctrine—“America for the Americans.” Not only in Venezuela, but across the region, there will be immediate rejection of any leader perceived as a puppet installed by Trump.
What is most tragic is that this Nobel Peace Prize has been tarnished forever. Machado remains silent in the face of organizations and activists defending Palestine and other peoples suffering attacks against humanity. To grant a peace prize to someone who promotes violence is, quite simply, diabolical. There is no other word for it.
