The Norwegian Nobel Committee has honoured the prominent Venezuelan Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado with the Nobel Prize for 2025 at a time when U.S.-Venezuela relations have hit a new low.
The honour to Ms. Machado, one of the strongest critics of controversial President Nicolas Maduro, comes at a time when the Donald Trump administration has upped the ante against Venezuela. It has ordered a major build-up of U.S. naval forces in the southern Caribbean Sea, outside Venezuela’s waters, leading to speculation that the ties are headed towards a military confrontation. Mr. Trump has, without basis, declared that Mr. Maduro’s government is a “narco-terror cartel” and Mr. Maduro a “terrorist-cartel leader”, with the naval mission targeting boats ostensibly operated by the cartel.
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Known in Venezuela, among her supporters, as the “Iron Lady”, Ms. Machado is the leader of the right-wing Vente Venezuela party. An industrial engineer with a Master’s degree in finance, she made her first foray into politics as a leader of a volunteer group called ‘Sumate’ in 2002. The group sought to oppose the rule of then President Hugo Chavez by organising a referendum to recall Chavez from office. The repercussions from this activism, branded ‘treason’ by Chavistas — supporters of Chavez’s leftwing populist movement — led her to send her children abroad.
