The Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, whose powerful social movement has seen her living in hiding since last year, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded 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.”
Ms. Machado emerged from Venezuela’s political sidelines, uniting the country’s fragmented opposition in preparation for the 2024 election. This resurgence followed years of political apathy, during which President Nicolás Maduro’s government suppressed protests and arrested dissidents, leading to a significant exodus from the nation.
Although barred from running herself, she supported an opposition candidate against Mr. Maduro in last year’s presidential race. After Mr. Maduro secured a victory widely perceived as rigged, Ms. Machado was forced into hiding.
David Scheffer, an international law scholar at Arizona State University, commented that by selecting Ms. Machado, the Nobel committee “elevated a courageous hero of peacemaking — someone who works among her own people to protect them against repression and atrocity crimes in order to shape a more peaceful and democratic world.”
Last year, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization representing atomic bomb survivors who have campaigned extensively for nuclear disarmament. In 2023, the honor went to Narges Mohammadi, Iran’s most prominent human rights activist.
Here’s what else you should know:
- A secretive process: The Nobel committee reviews nominations from thousands of potential nominators. While the official list of nominees remains confidential, some names are disclosed by their nominators. This year saw 338 candidates — comprising 244 individuals and 94 organizations — nominated for the prize. A five-person committee, appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, makes the selection in secret.
- The other Nobels: Friday’s announcement concludes a week of Nobel Prizes across the arts and sciences. Here are the recipients.
- Trump’s ongoing pursuit: Former President Trump has openly expressed his long-standing desire to win the award, publicly and privately lamenting that he has not received the honor. Various groups and individuals, including leaders from Israel, Pakistan, and Cambodia, reportedly nominated him. However, this year’s award acknowledges achievements in 2024, prior to Mr. Trump’s return to the White House.
Venezuela’s recent elections have faced widespread criticism for lacking fairness. Although María Corina Machado did not personally run for president in 2024, she was the driving force behind the primary opposition candidate, a relatively unknown diplomat named Edmundo González. An independent vote count, verified by observers from the Carter Center, indicated a decisive victory for González, yet the authoritarian Nicolás Maduro declared himself the winner.
Less than a year later, Venezuela’s electoral council, composed of officials loyal to Maduro, proclaimed an overwhelming victory for his party. No independent vote monitors were present, leading critics to dismiss the election as a mere spectacle.
David Scheffer, a former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes and an international law scholar at Arizona State University, stated that by recognizing Ms. Machado, the Nobel committee “elevated a courageous hero of peacemaking — someone who works among her own people to protect them against repression and atrocity crimes in order to shape a more peaceful and democratic world.”
Tensions between the United States and Venezuela have intensified in recent weeks. President Trump previously declared that the U.S. was engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels. His administration has conducted military strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea, and some of his top advisers are actively campaigning to remove President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from office.
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, addressed a reporter’s question regarding President Trump’s public pursuit of the prize and its potential influence on deliberations. He explained that the committee receives numerous letters annually endorsing specific candidates, but the sole guiding principles for selecting a laureate are those established by Alfred Nobel when he founded the prize.
María Corina Machado rose from Venezuela’s political periphery to cultivate a formidable social movement, capable of mobilizing thousands of people into the streets. Our 2024 profile by Julie Turkewitz and Isayen Herrera details her journey.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee formally presented the prize to Machado “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.”
The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to María Corina Machado, a prominent Venezuelan politician and opposition leader.
Last year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a movement dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons, composed of Japanese survivors of the atomic bombings.
Many members of the group, Nihon Hidankyo, have devoted their lives to sharing their harrowing stories of loss and suffering. Their aim is to ensure that the world fully grasps the profound horror that a nuclear war would unleash.
Formed in 1956, Nihon Hidankyo is the largest organization representing survivors of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It swiftly became a unified voice advocating for the social and economic rights of survivors. The group has compiled and disseminated thousands of survivor testimonies, and its delegations have attended international conferences to build support for nuclear disarmament.
As of last year, over 100,000 survivors of the 1945 bombings were still alive.
These survivors grappled with profound guilt and radiation-induced illnesses. For years, they faced ostracization in Japan, serving as stark, living reminders of the atomic bombs’ devastating impact.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized the group for “its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”
Terumi Tanaka, a survivor and co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, recalled in his 2024 Nobel Prize lecture how dozens of group representatives participated in the United Nations Special Sessions on Disarmament in 1978 and 1982, giving powerful testimonies at schools and events in New York.
During that period, U.S.-Soviet tensions were escalating, and the specter of nuclear war loomed globally. These fears spurred a nuclear freeze movement in the United States, calling for an end to the arms race.
Currently, nine nations possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, France, China, Britain, Pakistan, India, Israel, and North Korea. The global nuclear stockpile contains nearly 13,000 weapons, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Nuclear weapons have not been deployed in warfare since the American bombings of Japanese cities.
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the Nobel committee chairman, remarked last year that the survivors “help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons.”
Since receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Tanaka has continued his advocacy against nuclear weapons, urging younger generations to join the movement.
In a New York Times guest essay in August, he cautioned that countries are “turning to increased reliance on nuclear deterrence as military strategy,” warning that “the next generation may very well live to see World War III.”
When President Trump was asked last summer whether the announcement date of the Nobel Peace Prize, October 10, was marked on his calendar, he sidestepped the question.
“I can’t say. I mean, a lot of people say no matter what I did — because you know, I’m of a certain persuasion — no matter what I do, they won’t give it up,” Mr. Trump stated.
He added, “I’m not politicking for it. I have a lot of people that are.”
Even if Mr. Trump didn’t physically mark the date, the aspiration has certainly occupied his thoughts, as he has actively lobbied for the award for years. On Friday, the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway’s capital, will declare the laureate, chosen based on the principles set forth by its founder, 19th-century Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel.
The prize reveal comes 48 hours after Mr. Trump announced what he touted as a major diplomatic success in ending the protracted conflict in the Gaza Strip. He has already claimed this as one of many conflicts he’s helped resolve during his time in office.
“BLESSED ARE THE PEACEMAKERS!” concluded Mr. Trump’s social media post detailing the agreement between Israel and Hamas after two years of warfare.
However, Mr. Trump might not even qualify for this year’s award. The prize typically honors achievements from the preceding year, and in 2024, Mr. Trump had been elected but not yet inaugurated as president. Furthermore, the committee’s head confirmed that the decision for this year’s laureate was made on Monday.
Moreover, Mr. Trump’s prospects could be undermined by his domestic policies, which include suppressing dissent, challenging academic freedom, and deploying the U.S. military in American cities. Some experts also argue that his efforts to portray himself as a global peacemaker have been overshadowed by his alignment with figures like Russian President Vladimir V. Putin and his withdrawal from international cooperation alliances.
Prior to the Gaza agreement, Mr. Trump consistently maintained his deservingness of the prize, which has been bestowed upon four other American presidents: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Barack Obama, and Jimmy Carter (who received his decades after leaving the White House). A member of Congress nominated Mr. Trump in December for his role in brokering the Abraham Accords, agreements to normalize relations between Israel and several Arab nations during his first term.
Mr. Trump’s persistent lobbying dates back to his first term and continued throughout his campaign for a second. He famously expressed bitter complaints about Mr. Obama receiving the prize less than nine months into his presidency for addressing “the great climatic challenges.” Mr. Obama himself admitted at the time that his accomplishments were “slight,” and the announcement sparked considerable debate.
Since assuming office, Mr. Trump has discussed the prize over a half-dozen times, often fluctuating between indignation, exasperation, and resigned disappointment.
He first voiced his views on the prize in February during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of several world leaders who have publicly supported Mr. Trump for the honor.
“They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize,” Mr. Trump declared. “It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.”
On Wednesday, when questioned about his chances, Mr. Trump appeared to accept that his odds were slim, despite his claims of resolving multiple conflicts. “Perhaps they’ll find a reason not to give it to me,” he remarked. “You know, perhaps they will.”
Mr. Trump has also incurred the disapproval of some committee members. Shortly after his election, Jorgen Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and secretary general of PEN Norway, explicitly referenced him in an interview while discussing the “erosion of freedom of expression, even in democratic nations.”
Nina Graeger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, which researches international peace efforts and compiles an unofficial list of potential Nobel laureates annually, characterized Mr. Trump’s public campaign for the prize as “unusual” and his assertions of ending seven (sometimes ten) conflicts as “bold.”
“I think the committee should distinguish between the way in which Mr. Trump expresses himself or the way in which he has talked about his candidacy, and his actual achievements,” she stated.
Ms. Graeger noted that while the committee has previously considered achievements within the current year, the prize specifically recognizes “sustainable and lasting peace.” If the Gaza peace plan proves successful, it could strengthen Mr. Trump’s candidacy next year, she added.
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump has dedicated the past several months to intensifying his campaign for the prize.
“No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do,” he posted on social media in June, “including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”
In a September address to senior military leaders in Quantico, Va., Mr. Trump complained about not receiving sufficient credit while downplaying his personal interest in the award.
“They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing,” he said. “They’ll give it to a guy that wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump and what it took to solve the wars.”
He then concluded: “No, but let’s see what happens. But it’d be a big insult to our country, I will tell you that. I don’t want it. I want the country to get it.”
Mr. Trump also utilized his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last month to present his case on the international stage.
“Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements,” he remarked. “But for me, the real prize will be the sons and daughters who live to grow up with their mothers and fathers because millions of people are no longer being killed in endless and unglorious wars. What I care about is not winning prizes, it’s saving lives.”
Ms. Graeger also pointed out that some of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy objectives conflict with the prize’s criteria, such as peaceful disarmament and international cooperation. This is evident in the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, and cuts to international humanitarian aid programs like U.S.A.I.D. She further noted that Mr. Trump’s domestic policy agenda suggests an “infringement of basic democratic rights.”
However, she observed that the committee has not shied away from making controversial decisions.
“The more holistic picture will depend on what the committee wants to emphasize when they look at the candidates,” she stated. “A candidate doesn’t have to be perfect.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Luke Broadwater, and David E. Sanger contributed reporting.