BREAKING: Venezuela’s Opposition Leader Maria Corina Machado Wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, Trump Misses Out

• Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her fight to restore democracy in Venezuela.

• The Nobel Committee praised her courage in challenging dictatorship despite threats to her life, while US President Donald Trump — who openly sought the prize — missed out.

The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 has been awarded to Maria Corina Machado, Venezuela’s opposition leader and democracy activist, in recognition of her tireless struggle for freedom, justice, and democratic transition in her country.

Announcing the award in Oslo on Friday, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, praised Machado for her “extraordinary civilian courage” in challenging Venezuela’s authoritarian regime despite life-threatening risks.

“She has remained in Venezuela despite serious threats against her life, a choice that has inspired millions,” Frydnes said.

Why Maria Corina Machado Won the Nobel Peace Prize

The committee said Machado was honoured “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.”

She has been a key unifying figure in Venezuela’s fragmented opposition movement and a source of hope in a country facing a humanitarian and economic crisis.

The Nobel body described her as “one of the most extraordinary examples of civilian courage in Latin America in recent times.”

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Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize Ambition Fails

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump had openly expressed his desire to win the 2025 Peace Prize, repeatedly insisting since his return to the White House in January that he “deserves” the honor for allegedly helping resolve global conflicts.

However, Nobel experts in Oslo dismissed his chances ahead of the announcement, stressing that his “America First” policies are at odds with the ideals set out in Alfred Nobel’s 1895 will, which established the award.

Previous and Upcoming Nobel Prizes

Last year, the Peace Prize went to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese anti-nuclear movement founded by atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The award includes a gold medal, a diploma, and a cash prize of $1.2 million. It will be formally presented in Oslo, Norway on December 10, marking the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2025 was awarded on Thursday to Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai, while the Nobel season concludes on Monday with the Nobel Prize in Economics.