Last year, Donald Trump said he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for putting a stop to eight wars. And on Thursday (January 16), he finally became a Nobel prize winner, sort of. That’s because Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado “presented” the golden medal to US President Trump after meeting him in the White House, nearly a fortnight after he ordered the abduction of Nicolas Maduro.
The extraordinary gesture by Machado was “recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom”. The move comes after the American leader had noted earlier that the award should have gone to him — and refusing to back Machado following the January 3 US military operation to capture Maduro.
But many are asking one question — can Machado actually transfer the Nobel to Trump? What do the rules say?
Machado’s Nobel gesture to Trump
On Thursday, more than 10 days after
Trump captured Maduro, Venezuela’s leading opposition figure
Maria Corina Machado met with the US president at the White House. At the lunch, the 58-year-old presented Trump with the
Nobel Peace Prize that she had won last December for “keeping the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness”. At the time of announcing the award to Machado, the Nobel Committee had hailed the Venezuelan leader 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”.
On handing the award to Trump, Machado said that it was her “recognition for his unique commitment with our freedom”.
“I presented the president of the United States the medal — the Nobel Peace Prize,” Machado told reporters. According to a report in TIME magazine, when she handed the award to Trump, she narrated a story of a similar medal with George Washington’s face on it that General Marquis de Lafayette, the French military officer who helped win the American Revolution, had given Simon Bolivar, who helped liberate Venezuela and five other Latin American countries from Spanish rule.
She further added that she called Trump, as the American president, the “heir” of Washington and told him: “The people of Bolivar are giving back to the heir of Washington a medal — in this case a medal of the Nobel Peace Prize and the recognition of his unique commitment to our freedom.”
Responding to Machado’s extraordinary gesture, Trump wrote on Truth Social that Machado “presented me with her Nobel peace prize for the work I have done. Such a wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”
While it is unclear if Trump is keeping the award, a White House official confirmed to Reuters that the US president intends to keep the medal.
Trump’s Nobel desires and Machado’s intentions
Machado presenting her Nobel to Trump comes as the US president has made no bones about wanting the global recognition.
Trump has repeatedly said he deserves the award for ending conflicts around the world.
In fact, the day Machado won the award, she called Trump at the White House to tell him she was dedicating the prize to him. Machado also told Fox News last week that she would like to tell him personally that the Venezuelan people “want to give it to him and share it with him.”
More notably, Machado’s move goes beyond just the symbolism. It’s almost an attempt by Machado to sway Trump to her side after he dismissed the idea of installing her as Venezuela’s leader to replace the deposed Nicolas Maduro. After ousting Maduro, Trump claimed Machado “does not have the support or the respect within the country” to be leader.
And it seems that Trump held this belief right before he met her — as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted that the US president had been looking forward to meeting Machado, but that he stood by his “realistic” assessment that she did not currently have the support needed to lead the country in the short term. “The president’s assessment was based on realities on the ground. It was a realistic assessment based on what the president was reading and hearing from his national security team. At this moment in time his opinion on that matter has not changed.”
Trump has, in fact, extended his support to
Delcy Rodriguez, the acting president of Venezuela. On Wednesday, Trump said he had spoken with Rodriguez on the phone, calling her a “terrific person” and saying they were “getting along very well.”
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins noted that Machado’s Nobel handover was, undoubtedly, politically motivated. “What it comes down to is why she would do this? And that is because she wants to run Venezuela,” said Collins. “She obviously was the most popular opposition figure in the last elections that they had when Maduro was still there and was rigging the elections.”
Rules on transferring the Nobel
Machado’s presentation of the Nobel to Trump has raised questions on whether the award can be transferred. The Nobel Committee explained the rules of transferring the prize in a social media post. It noted that while
Nobel Peace Prize medals can be passed on from person to person, the rules are clear: once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time.
Notably, when Machado had announced last week that she would like to share the honour with Trump, the Norwegian Nobel Institute had stated that its peace prize cannot be transferred, shared, or revoked. It said that the decision to award a Nobel was final and permanent, citing the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, which do not allow appeals. It also noted that committees awarding the prizes did not comment on the actions or statements of laureates after receiving awards.
The Nobel committee noted in their social media post that some Nobel Peace Prize medals have been passed on after the award was given. For instance,
Dmitry Muratov’s medal was auctioned for over $100 million to support refugees from the war in Ukraine. And the medal displayed at the Nobel Peace Center is actually on loan and originally belonged to Christian Lous Lange, Norway’s first Peace Prize laureate.
There’s also the time when Ernest Hemingway entrusted his Nobel prize in literature to the Catholic Church in Cuba. Furthermore, Leon Lederman, who won the 1988 Nobel prize for physics, sold his after it had spent 20 years “sitting on a shelf somewhere”.
Many other Nobel winners have also sold the gold medal in the past. The Nobel Peace Prize awarded in 1936 to Carlos Saavedra Lamas, a former foreign minister of Argentina, sold it for $1.1 million in 2014.
It’s to be seen if Machado’s move sways Trump. But for now, the US president can soak in the fact that he’s kind of a Nobel winner now.
With inputs from agencies
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