Venezuelan absorption person and Nobel Peace Prize victor María Corina Machado waves to supporters extracurricular the White House pursuing a gathering with U.S. President Donald Trump connected January 15, 2026 successful Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Norwegian lawmakers reacted with daze and dismay implicit Venezuela absorption person María Corina Machado's decision to contiguous U.S. President Donald Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal.
"It's wholly unheard of," Janne Haaland Matlary, a prof of planetary authorities astatine the University of Oslo and erstwhile authorities caput successful the overseas affairs ministry, told nationalist broadcaster NRK connected Friday.
She called Machado's motion "disrespectful" and "pathetic," saying it undermined the worth of the prize, which the Norwegian Nobel Committee awards annually.
Raymond Johansen, a Norwegian lawmaker for the center-left Labour Party and erstwhile governing politician of Oslo, said successful a Facebook post it was "incredibly embarrassing and damaging to 1 of the world's astir respected and important prizes," according to a Google translation.
Machado, who met Trump astatine the White House for the archetypal clip connected Thursday, said the acquisition to U.S. president was a "profound look of gratitude for the invaluable enactment of President Trump and the United States to the Venezuelan people." It was aft a U.S. subject cognition seized Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, connected Jan. 3.
The U.S. president thanked Machado connected societal media, describing it arsenic a "wonderful motion of communal respect." The White House aboriginal posted a photo of Trump and Machado, with the U.S. president holding up a large, gold-colored framework displaying the medal.
A bust of Swedish chemist, engineer, inventor, businessman, and philanthropist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) is pictured extracurricular the Norwegian Nobel Institute successful Oslo, Norway connected January 8, 2026.
Jonathan Nackstrand | Afp | Getty Images
The Nobel Peace Center, a depository successful Norway's superior dedicated to the Nobel Peace Prize, said successful a station connected X: "A medal tin alteration owners, but the rubric of a Nobel Peace Prize laureate cannot."
The Norwegian Nobel Committee and the Norwegian Nobel Institute had antecedently said: "The facts are wide and good established. Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot beryllium revoked, shared, oregon transferred to others. The determination is last and stands for each time."
"Whoever has received the prize has received the prize," Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, person of Norway's Centre Party, told NRK. "The information that Trump accepts the medal says thing astir him arsenic a type: a classical scapegoat who volition adorn himself with different people's awards and work," helium added.
The White House was not instantly disposable to remark erstwhile contacted by CNBC connected Friday.
'Politics implicit peace'
Trump has often spoken astir his tendency to beryllium awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The White House responded to the Nobel Committee's determination to grant Machado the medal successful October past twelvemonth by saying they had "proved they spot authorities implicit peace."
Some Norwegian lawmakers appeared blessed to brushwood disconnected Machado's gesture, however, saying it should not beryllium seen arsenic an denotation of who the grant rightfully belongs to.
Dag-Inge Ulstein, person of Norway's center-right Christian Democratic Party, told NRK that determination is "no doubt" that the Nobel Peace Prize inactive belongs to Machado.
Ine Eriksen Søreide, Norway's erstwhile defence curate and a subordinate of the center-right Conservative Party, agreed with Ulstein.
"Even though Trump has present received the medal, it does not mean that helium has received the Peace Prize," Søreide said.
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