White House Decries Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize Snub After Machado’s Victory

In a strik­ing turn of events, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was award­ed to Venezue­lan oppo­si­tion leader María Cori­na Macha­do, rather than for­mer U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, spark­ing sharp crit­i­cism from the White House.

Machado’s Win and the Controversy

The Nor­we­gian Nobel Com­mit­tee announced Macha­do as this year’s lau­re­ate on Octo­ber 10, rec­og­niz­ing her for her “tire­less work pro­mot­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic rights” and efforts toward a peace­ful tran­si­tion in Venezuela.

In a sur­pris­ing move, Macha­do ded­i­cat­ed the award not only to the Venezue­lan peo­ple but also to Don­ald Trump, thank­ing him for his “deci­sive sup­port” of her cause. Her words high­light­ed the polit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic con­nec­tions between her move­ment and the Trump admin­is­tra­tion.

White House Reaction: Accusations of Politics Over Peace

The reac­tion from the White House was swift. Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Direc­tor Steven Che­ung accused the Nobel Com­mit­tee of pri­or­i­tiz­ing pol­i­tics over peace, stat­ing that “The Nobel Com­mit­tee proved they place pol­i­tics over peace.”

He went on to praise Trump’s record, claim­ing that the for­mer pres­i­dent “will con­tin­ue mak­ing peace deals, end­ing wars, and sav­ing lives.”

Oth­er Trump allies joined in. For­mer ambas­sador Richard Grenell post­ed that “The Nobel Prize died years ago,” echo­ing a sen­ti­ment shared by many of Trump’s sup­port­ers who saw the deci­sion as polit­i­cal­ly biased rather than mer­it-based.

Trump him­self, how­ev­er, struck a more restrained tone. Rather than crit­i­ciz­ing Macha­do, he reshared her mes­sage prais­ing him and thanked Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin for defend­ing his peace efforts amid the con­tro­ver­sy.

Wider Reactions and Diplomatic Ripples

The deci­sion rip­pled across the glob­al stage.
Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin pub­licly praised Trump’s diplo­mat­ic efforts, par­tic­u­lar­ly his role in help­ing achieve a Gaza cease­fire, while crit­i­ciz­ing the Nobel Com­mit­tee for over­look­ing him once again.

In Nor­way, spec­u­la­tion grew about whether the U.S. might retal­i­ate diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, giv­en Trump’s past frus­tra­tions with inter­na­tion­al insti­tu­tions. Mean­while, ana­lysts on both sides of the Atlantic point­ed out the del­i­cate bal­ance the Nobel Com­mit­tee faces—rewarding peace efforts while steer­ing clear of polit­i­cal influ­ence.

What’s Next

Though the Nobel Peace Prize went to Macha­do, the White House empha­sized that Trump would con­tin­ue his glob­al peace ini­tia­tives regard­less of recog­ni­tion.

Nor­we­gian offi­cials, for their part, defend­ed the committee’s inde­pen­dence, not­ing that its deci­sion had been final­ized before Trump’s recent Gaza cease­fire deal. Still, the con­tro­ver­sy is expect­ed to test U.S.–Norway rela­tions in the com­ing months.

As for Macha­do, her atten­dance at the Oslo award cer­e­mo­ny in Decem­ber remains uncer­tain due to Venezuela’s tense polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment.