Trump Received The Nobel Peace Prize From Maria Corina Machado. But Who Is She?

While Machado has played a pertinent and critical role for the US in causing chaos, disseminating propaganda, and pushing for regime change in Venezuela, it is necessary not to see Maria Corina Machado as an individual solely motivated by her own interests.

By Nuvpreet Kalra

Maria Corina Machado said it was a “historic day for us Venezuelans” as she handed President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize. For the pro-Israel, far-right opposition figure in Venezuela, being welcomed to the White House may have been a historic day. But for those of us interested in peace and justice, the only history the United States is making by keeping the sitting President of Venezuela locked up in New York is of colonialist bullying and imperialist violence.

After being snubbed of her dreamed-of-role as President of Venezuela, Machado left no hard feelings as she gave her recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize to Trump this week. Despite being told she didn’t have “respect” nor “support” within Venezuela to be parachuted in as leader would sever Trump-Machado relations. But, US relations with Machado and her far-right party are deep. This remains the zenith of her life’s worth to sell back her country to capital. For those wondering if Trump now has the Nobel Prize–yes. Well, he did the second Machado got it, no matter his statements to counteract that. Machado’s decision to accept the prize, supposedly contrary to the wishes of the White House, before delivering it to him in person, signifies the depth of Machado’s commitment to enact the US will on Venezuela.

Maria Corina Machado was born in 1967 into one of the wealthiest families in Venezuela. This wealth came from their ownership and control of Venezuela’s largest private-sector steel company, Sivensa, and its largest private steel processor, Sidetur. Her family also benefited greatly from the 1997 privatization of Sidor, the largest steel-maker in Venezuela, as they held a controlling stake. Between 2008 and 2010, the Chávez government nationalized all three of these companies, which stripped the Machado family of their life of abhorrent luxury while most Venezuelans suffered. Like many of this era, these wealthy families never forgave the revolutionary government for providing for the Venezuelan people.

In her youth, with all of the riches of these companies, Machado was educated at an elite boarding school in the United States, which costs $78,000 a year in today’s money. She then studied engineering at the graduate and post-graduate levels. After completing her studies, she spent a brief stint in her family’s steel company before she moved into philanthropy. It is not hard to see where her virulent pro-US politics has come from. But US-Machado relations go back a long way, which is why her handing Trump the Nobel Peace Prize today is not the first occasion where she has shown her true nature as a US-backed asset.

US-backed asset

In 2002, Machado set up Súmate, an NGO aiming to topple the Bolivarian Revolution under the supposed task of “election monitoring” in Venezuela. It immediately received at least $53,400 from the United States via the National Endowment for Democracy, the infamous route through which the US funds its CIA campaigns globally. Súmate was the front through which US interests repeatedly attempted to undermine Chávez: they pushed the campaign for a 2004 recall of the presidential election, produced data for opposition attacks, and peddled anti-Chávez propaganda in the media, amongst other nefarious activities using the front of “democracy” to do so. In 2005, Bush invited Machado into the Oval Office to personally thank her for carrying out this work.

In 2012, Machado set up Vente Venezuela, a far-right political party that pushed for private property and free markets in Venezuela. Through this political party, she has attempted to unify strands of the opposition to push her challenge to the Bolivarian project and launch counter-revolutionary measures aimed at overthrowing the government. Machado has asserted that if she were in power, she would sell off Venezuela’s publicly owned oil company and privatize all oil and gas reserves that currently fund public services for Venezuelans. These instances reveal that “democracy” and “freedom” are guises for the ultimate aim of privatization in order for her, as well as her friends and family, to once more embezzle huge sums of money and cut off millions of people from needed public services.

When the US imposed sanctions on Venezuela, formally in 2005, Machado was one of the loudest and most abrasive supporters. On many occasions, she has been boldly in support of these unilateral coercive measures that have killed over 100,000 people and caused absolute misery for Venezuelans.

Beyond her support for sanctions, Machado’s appetite for the murder of her own countrymen is seen through her support for the US naval armada as well as murderous US attacks on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, which have killed over 120 people since September 2025. As 70% of the US oppose war on Venezuela, as families mourn their loved ones, and as millions of dollars are used to fund warship deployments in the Caribbean, Machado said, “I totally support [Trump’s] strategy. I think it is the right thing to do. It’s courageous. It’s visionary”. Perhaps Machado’s American boarding school taught her such conceptions of courage and vision, but for those of us who have seen the videos of boats being bombed, heard testimonies of the civilian victims of airstrikes in La Gauira, and watched the rabid threats of war flow unabated, they are supportive of terror and murder.

Not only are people in Venezuela being sacrificed in Machado’s dream of a ravaged, neoliberal Venezuela, but as per her duty, she also justifies US action against Venezuelans living in the United States. Machado peddled lies about drug cartels and their links to the Venezuelan government, which justified Trump’s incarceration of 200 Venezuelans in the US to the CECOT torture facility in El Salvador. When she traveled to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Machado revealed her journey was made possible by U.S. support. She also dedicated the prize to Trump before ultimately delivering the prize to him by hand this week. Machado is a key asset for the US as a voice that ostensibly speaks on behalf of those grieved from within Venezuela that can be used to justify their regime change attempts from outside.

Instigator of violence

A second prong to Machado’s role in the Venezuelan opposition is in instigating violence, both within Venezuela, through funding and provoking violent riots, and externally, encouraging foreign intervention. In 2002, Machado helped lead the US-backed coup to overthrow democratically elected President Hugo Chávez. She signed the Carmona Decree, which tried to dissolve the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, and other governmental bodies that brought about change in the interests of the Venezuelan people and away from the hoarding of foreign and domestic elites, like herself.

Machado was a key figure in organizing guarimbas, violent riots aimed at causing chaos and paralyzing the country in order to provoke political and economic collapse. In 2014, Machado was a key organizer and supporter of guarimbas that killed her political opponents, burnt down public infrastructure, and set ambulances and doctors on fire. Again in 2017, she helped to organize and fund the guarimbas, which killed 200 people and wounded more than 15,000, and caused significant damage to bus drivers, metro workers, and passengers, hospitals, roads, and other public buildings. These riots targeted people living their daily lives: barricades were erected to stop people from going to work or school, bus drivers were attacked for transporting people, metal wires were hung to kill anyone who tried to bypass them, and the public infrastructure for life was destroyed. This onslaught on Venezuelans strived to make their lives unbearable to inflict the maximum social damage and force political change through terror and violence. After the presidential election in 2024, Machado’s party funded saboteurs to stage tire-burning protests and attack military bases in an attempt to spur more guarimbas and justify the US and opposition’s call that the election was a “fraud”.

As well as her support for US sanctions and attacks on Venezuela, Machado made a plea to genocide architect Benjamin Netanyahu in 2018 to intervene at the United Nations for military intervention in Venezuela. She asked for Netanyahu’s apparent “strength and influence to advance the dismantling of the criminal Venezuelan regime.” But this appeal represents the critical link between Machado’s desire for Venezuela and her zionist fanaticism, necessary and unsurprising as Machado is a node within the global imperialist axis,

Pro-Israel Propagandist

Machado is openly zionist and receives strong support from Israel, perhaps unsurprisingly given her status as a US puppet. She’s repeatedly committed to alliances with the zionist entity and spread its propaganda, particularly as she has become the key opposition leader of the current moment. Since 2009, when Chávez ended diplomatic relations with Israel, Venezuela has not engaged with the zionist entity. This, too, is a rationale for persistent US efforts at overthrowing the anti-imperialist, anti-zionist governments of Chávez and Maduro, who have repeatedly stated: “humanity’s most important battle is for the liberation of Palestine.”

In 2020, Machado’s party signed a co-operation agreement with Israel’s fascist “Likud” Party, a party advocating for the total extermination of Palestine. Every year, she posts on social media erasing and celebrating Nakba Day as Israel’s “founding”, a genocidal zionist propaganda line. In 2025, she praised Netanyahu for the genocide in Gaza, saying “she greatly appreciates his decisions and resolute actions in the course of the war, and Israel’s achievements.” Her desire for power is also in the interest of Israel, she said if she were president, “Venezuela will be Israel’s closest ally in Latin America”. Machado has promised to move Venezuela’s embassy to Jerusalem in an attempt to legitimize Israel’s occupation. She has also vowed to restore relations with Israel.

Previous failed US-backed opposition leaders have also been recognized by Israel immediately, including Juan Guaido, who announced himself president and quickly said “the process of stabilising relations with Israel is at its height”. Israel also recognized Machado’s predecessor, Edmundo Gonzalez’s claim that he was president of Venezuela in 2024, after he lost the election. When the US pushes these leaders, they are in the interests of its own empire, of which Israel is a critical component. Thus, we must recognize the role of Venezuela’s revolutionary government in supporting Palestine in sharp contrast to the far-right opposition’s desire to propel Venezuela into the US-Israel axis.

While Machado has played a pertinent and critical role for the US in causing chaos, disseminating propaganda, and pushing for regime change in Venezuela, it is necessary not to see Maria Corina Machado as an individual solely motivated by her own interests. Her desire to return to Venezuela for the profits of the few at the expense of the many is certainly rooted in her elite upbringing and personal stake in a potential neoliberal Venezuela. But Machado is ultimately one thread in the fabric of the US empire. Whether it’s Machado, Guaido, Gonzalez, López, Capriles, or any new figure that will certainly emerge, all are set up with the one aim of destroying the Bolivarian Revolution in the interests of the United States.

White House officials might have told the Washington Post that the only reason Machado was not installed as President of Venezuela was that she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, when it belonged to Trump. But, Machado could give that certificate to Trump again and again, and again, it is the Venezuelan people who will determine their own fate. We stand with them.

Nuvpreet Kalra is CODEPINK’s digital content producer. She completed a Bachelor’s in politics and sociology at the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Internet Equalities at the University of the Arts London. As a student, she was part of movements to divest and decolonize, as well as anti-racist and anti-imperialist groups. Nuvpreet joined CODEPINK as an intern in 2023, and now produces digital and social media content. In England, she organizes with groups for Palestinian liberation, abolition, and anti-imperialism.