US President Donald Trump has claimed that Maria Corina Machado, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, called him to say she was accepting the prestigious award “in honour” of him.
Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote democratic rights and lead a peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy in Venezuela.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, “The person who got the Nobel Prize called me today and said, ‘I am accepting this in honour of you because you really deserved it.’ I didn’t say, ‘Give it to me,’ though. I think she might have. I’ve been helping her along the way… They needed a lot of help in Venezuela during the disaster. I’m happy because I saved millions of lives.”
Trump, who had anticipated being among the nominees, suggested that his administration’s efforts to end multiple global conflicts qualified him for the award.
“I said, ‘Well, what about the seven others? I should get a Nobel Prize for each one.’ They said, ‘But if you stop Russia and Ukraine, sir, you should be able to get the Nobel.’ I said I stopped seven wars — that’s one war, and that’s a big one.”
The former president listed several conflicts he claimed to have helped de-escalate, including tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Rwanda and the Congo.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also voiced support for Trump, writing on X, “Give @realDonaldTrump the Nobel Peace Prize — he deserves it!”
Meanwhile, the Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Machado as a “brave and committed champion of peace,” noting that she “keeps the flame of democracy burning amid growing darkness.”
“Democracy is a precondition for lasting peace,” the Committee said in its citation. “We live in a world where democracy is in retreat, where more authoritarian regimes are silencing critics and undermining free elections. Machado has spent years working for the freedom of the Venezuelan people.”
The committee added that Machado “meets all three criteria” in Alfred Nobel’s will for the Peace Prize, emphasizing that her struggle reflects the enduring belief that “the tools of democracy are also the tools of peace.”
