Venezuelan Nobel laureate gifts Trump peace medal, igniting backlash

A wave of disbelief has swept through Norwegian media and the expert community following reports that Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado presented her award medal to US President Donald Trump, who has long coveted the accolade, Bloomberg reports.

“That’s completely unheard of,” Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor at the University of Oslo and former politician,said. “It’s a total lack of respect for the award, on her part,” she added, calling the gesture “meaningless” and “pathetic.”

Trump, who claims to have earned the prize for resolving multiple conflicts during his second term, accepted the medal from Machado at a White House meeting on January 15. He had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee emphasized last week that the award cannot be shared or transferred, and it declined to comment on the latest development when contacted.

Machado, who has been excluded from Venezuela’s leadership transition since US forces ousted Nicolás Maduro on January 3 while leaving his regime largely intact, said she gave Trump the medal “as a recognition of his unique commitment with our freedom.”

The Nobel Peace Prize, established under the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite who died in 1896, is widely regarded as one of the world’s most prestigious honors for diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.

“This is unbelievably embarrassing and damaging to one of the world’s most recognized and important prizes,” Raymond Johansen, former mayor of Oslo with the ruling Labor Party, wrote on Facebook. “The awarding of the prize is now so politicized and potentially dangerous that it could easily legitimize an anti-peace prize development.”

By Vafa Guliyeva