María Corina Machado, leader of the Venezuelan opposition, presented the Nobel Peace Prize medal to US President Donald Trump this Thursday. Machado justified the gesture as a gesture from the Venezuelan people for the actions of the president of the United States to advance “their freedom.”
A golden frame surrounded the Nobel Prize medal with a message at the top written by Machado that read: “in gratitude for his extraordinary leadership in promoting peace.” Trump and Machado had separately announced the presentation of the medal, which occurred during the lunch that the Republican offered to the Venezuelan leader in private and without details offered about the topics discussed.
The Nobel Peace Center shows its rejection
This same Thursday, before the meeting between Trump and Machado, the Nobel Peace Center stressed on social networks that the award “cannot be revoked, shared or transferred to others,” and specified that “a medal can change owners, but the title of Nobel Peace Prize cannot.”
“The decision is final and lasts forever,” the Foundation has made known. Although he never mentions Machado by name, he does explain that his statement is a note in response to “requests for comments on the permanence of the status of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.” The Nobel medal, struck in gold and less than three inches in diameter, bears a portrait of Alfred Nobel, a design that has remained virtually unchanged for more than 120 years.
After the meeting, which is the first meeting after 12 days of the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in Caracas by the US armed forces, Machado assured that Trump was committed to the freedom of political prisoners and all Venezuelans. In Truth Social, the Republican described Machado as “a wonderful woman” and thanked her for the gift of the Nobel medal for being a “show of mutual respect.”
Trump calls Delcy Rodríguez “a fantastic person”
The meeting occurs a day after the president of the United States and the leader in charge of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, had a telephone conversation this Wednesday that both characterized as positive. Trump later said that Rodriguez is “a fantastic person.”
Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, described the conversation as long, productive and cordial, and noted that both addressed a bilateral agenda for the benefit of both countries. All of this despite the position that the Venezuelan government has publicly maintained, which has accused the Trump Administration on several occasions of “kidnapping” the country’s president Nicolás Maduro and had demanded his return. The current Venezuelan leader also stated in a statement after the meeting between Machado and Trump that if she has to go to the US she will do so “standing and not dragged.”
