A Decision against Trump
Published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(Germany) on 10 October 2025
by Nikolas Busse (link to
original)
Even with the Nobel Peace Prize, María Corina Machado will not be able to topple the Maduro regime. There is a good reason why Trump came out empty-handed.
One doesn’t have to take the Nobel Peace Prize as seriously as Donald Trump does. Prosaically, it reproduces the worldview of Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Asle Toje, Anne Enger, Kristin Clemet and Gry Larsen. Those are the five members of the Norwegian Nobel committee: politicians, political scientists and activists whom few outside the country know about and whose political opinions one would not consider globally relevant on any other day.
Kohl Never Won the Prize
The committee’s missteps are also notorious. Helmut Kohl never received the prize; Barack Obama received it for practically nothing; Abiy Ahmed Ali led a war in his own country after receiving the prize; accusations of genocide were later raised against Aung San Suu Kyi. One can’t claim, either, that the world has become more peaceful since 1901, the year when the prize was first awarded.
The awarding of the 2025 prize to María Corina Machado should also be seen in this light. The Venezuelan opposition politician is a brave fighter for democracy in the leftist autocracy that first Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro have built in this oil-rich but rundown South American country.
Bet on an Unknown Future
However, she has never held political office, making the award in this year, too, a bet on an unknown future. That symbolic pressure from abroad alone is insufficient to topple the regime in Caracas was already clear a few years ago from the fate of Juan Guaidó, who did not come to power despite recognition from many Western states.
The decision for Machado was, naturally, also a decision against Trump. Formally, one can argue that the Gaza agreement came too late and that, in other places, he has not brought about quite as much peace as he himself claims (none at all in Ukraine). But part of Trump is also his problematic domestic policies. They are conspicuous, not only when viewed from Norway.
One doesn’t have to take the Nobel Peace Prize as seriously as Donald Trump does. Prosaically, it reproduces the worldview of Jørgen Watne Frydnes, Asle Toje, Anne Enger, Kristin Clemet and Gry Larsen. Those are the five members of the Norwegian Nobel committee: politicians, political scientists and activists whom few outside the country know about and whose political opinions one would not consider globally relevant on any other day.
Kohl Never Won the Prize
The committee’s missteps are also notorious. Helmut Kohl never received the prize; Barack Obama received it for practically nothing; Abiy Ahmed Ali led a war in his own country after receiving the prize; accusations of genocide were later raised against Aung San Suu Kyi. One can’t claim, either, that the world has become more peaceful since 1901, the year when the prize was first awarded.
The awarding of the 2025 prize to María Corina Machado should also be seen in this light. The Venezuelan opposition politician is a brave fighter for democracy in the leftist autocracy that first Hugo Chávez and now Nicolás Maduro have built in this oil-rich but rundown South American country.
Bet on an Unknown Future
However, she has never held political office, making the award in this year, too, a bet on an unknown future. That symbolic pressure from abroad alone is insufficient to topple the regime in Caracas was already clear a few years ago from the fate of Juan Guaidó, who did not come to power despite recognition from many Western states.
The decision for Machado was, naturally, also a decision against Trump. Formally, one can argue that the Gaza agreement came too late and that, in other places, he has not brought about quite as much peace as he himself claims (none at all in Ukraine). But part of Trump is also his problematic domestic policies. They are conspicuous, not only when viewed from Norway.
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