In a year marked by escalating tensions and sharp international scrutiny, the Nobel Peace Prize’s 2025 award to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has ignited a storm of controversy—one that reaches from the halls of Oslo to the oil fields of Venezuela and the corridors of the White House. The decision, coming amid U.S. military posturing in the Caribbean and a deepening humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, has left many questioning whether the Nobel Committee’s once-vaunted symbol of peace has become a tool for legitimizing geopolitical power plays.
On October 15, 2025, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he had authorized the CIA to begin covert operations inside Venezuela. The move followed a series of U.S. strikes on boats allegedly tied to drug trafficking off the Venezuelan coast—strikes that, according to The Daily of the University of Washington, destroyed six vessels and resulted in at least 29 deaths since early September. Just one day after Trump’s announcement, three U.S. B-52 nuclear-capable bombers roared over the Caribbean, skirting Venezuelan airspace in what the Pentagon described as a training exercise. Observers noted that special forces helicopters, including the M-6H "Little Bird" attack models often used for inserting elite troops, circled oil platforms within 100 miles of Venezuela’s coastline.
All of this unfolded against the backdrop of a $50 million bounty placed on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the U.S. State Department in August, and a White House press briefing in which Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared, “President Trump believes that Nicholas Maduro is an illegitimate president leading an illegitimate regime that has been trafficking drugs to the United States of America for far too long. And we’re not going to tolerate it.”
For critics, the parallels to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq are hard to ignore. Both campaigns have been justified through claims of terrorism, both have invoked the specter of weapons (or drugs) of mass destruction, and both have targeted countries with vast oil reserves. Venezuela, with more than 303 billion barrels of proven oil—more than even Saudi Arabia—has long been a prize eyed by American administrations wary of leaders unwilling to yield to U.S. corporate interests.
Yet, the story has taken an even more surreal turn with the Nobel Committee’s decision to honor Machado. Upon receiving the Peace Prize, Machado dedicated the award to Trump, lauding his "decisive support" and stating on Fox News that he "deserves" the Prize for allegedly ending "eight wars"—a claim widely debunked by fact-checkers. As reported by Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres, a political science expert writing under a Creative Commons license, this “conflation of militarism with peace fundamentally challenges the Prize’s core ethos, undermining its foundational principles and moral credibility.”
Machado’s record, in fact, is replete with support for foreign intervention and the use of force. She signed the Carmona Decree during the 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chávez, a document that temporarily dissolved Venezuela’s constitution and democratic institutions. In 2014, she appealed to the U.S. Congress for military intervention, stating, “the only path left is the use of force.” More recently, Machado has backed U.S. military strikes in Caribbean waters involving over 10,000 troops, warships, nuclear submarines, and advanced aircraft—operations that, according to United Nations reports, have resulted in at least 32 civilian deaths and have been condemned as extrajudicial killings in violation of international law.
Machado’s advocacy for external interference has not been limited to the United States. In 2018, she wrote to then-Argentine President Mauricio Macri and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging them to use their “strength and influence to advance the dismantling of the criminal Venezuelan regime” she claimed was linked to drug trafficking and terrorism. Her support for moving Venezuela’s embassy to Jerusalem, in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 478, further underscores her alignment with controversial foreign policy moves.
Meanwhile, the impact of U.S.-led sanctions on Venezuela has been nothing short of devastating. The Lancet Global Health study estimates that such sanctions have contributed to over 500,000 excess deaths worldwide each year, disproportionately affecting children under five. For Venezuela, the numbers are staggering: between 2017 and 2024, the country lost oil revenue equivalent to 213% of its GDP, totaling roughly $226 billion. This economic collapse has triggered one of the largest refugee crises in the Western Hemisphere, with more than 7 million Venezuelans fleeing the country in search of safety and opportunity.
The Nobel Committee’s decision to honor Machado came even as it overlooked other ongoing humanitarian disasters, most notably the crisis in Gaza, where more than 2.1 million residents face famine conditions and tens of thousands have died amid a decimated healthcare system. The timing, critics argue, reveals a troubling double standard—one that rewards a vocal proponent of military intervention and sanctions while ignoring those struggling to halt ongoing atrocities elsewhere.
The pattern of controversial Nobel laureates is not new. Past recipients like Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, and Juan Manuel Santos have all faced criticism for their roles in military campaigns or human rights abuses. The nomination of Machado by figures such as Marco Rubio (now U.S. Secretary of State) and Mike Waltz (current U.S. Ambassador to the UN), both known for hawkish stances on Latin America, fits neatly into this tradition of awarding the Prize to individuals whose records on peace are, at best, ambiguous.
As U.S. military deployments near Venezuela continue—thousands of troops, nuclear assets, and warships now operate in the region without United Nations authorization—international law experts warn of the serious risk of regional war. Trump’s confirmation of CIA covert operations and consideration of strikes inside Venezuelan territory, as reported by both The Daily of the University of Washington and international commentators, marks a "sharp escalation" of conflict risks across the Caribbean Basin and northern South America. Venezuela’s strategic location, bordering Colombia, Brazil, and Guyana, means any intervention could destabilize the broader region, triggering mass refugee flows and drawing neighboring countries into a protracted conflict over oil and power.
Machado’s support for these destabilizing policies, combined with her new status as a Nobel laureate, has the potential to embolden further intervention. As Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres puts it, “the Prize does not merely make a political choice—it actively legitimizes a toolkit of statecraft that is antithetical to peace.” The evidence, from sanction-induced deaths to violations of international law, paints a stark picture: the Nobel Peace Prize, once a symbol of moral authority, now risks becoming an instrument for the very forces it was meant to oppose.
In a world where the lines between peace and war grow ever more blurred, the story of Venezuela, Machado, and the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize serves as a sobering reminder: symbols matter, but so do the realities they reflect—and sometimes, they reveal truths we’d rather not face.
