On Wednesday, Venezuela's Iron Lady, María Corina Machado, will officially receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado, who has been in hiding in Venezuela since August 2024, is expected to attend if she can safely and successfully leave the country. It will mark her first public appearance since January.
That's huge. It's also risky. Nicolás Maduro's "government" said it would consider her a fugitive if she left the country, and she would not be able to re-enter without getting arrested. Her only crime? Opposing the socialism and corruption that keep Maduro afloat and have turned what was once one of the world's greatest democracies into a place where people starve due to lack of food and jobs, or disappear if they vote the wrong way — the brave actions that won her the prize in the first place.
It's not clear how she'll leave or if she'll make it. Some say she was smuggled out of Venezuela with help from the United States. Some believe she's already in Europe based on the location indicator on her X posts. I can report that as of Tuesday morning, officials in Oslo have canceled a pre-ceremony press conference, most likely because she's not there to participate just yet. Meanwhile, her three children, who live in exile for their own safety, are in Oslo at this moment, as is her 84-year-old mother.
Corina Pisca de Machado hasn't seen her daughter, María, in over a year. She escaped Venezuela earlier this year when the United States helped five political aides who were hiding in the Argentine Embassy in Caracas leave the country. According to Machado, her mother's neighborhood had become a police state, and she was under constant surveillance by both police officers and drones.
But now she is in Norway, not just waiting for the presentation ceremony, but also hoping to see her daughter again. "Every day I pray the rosary, I ask God the Father, the Virgin, both together, that we may have María Corina tomorrow," she told Agence France-Presse. "And if we don’t have her tomorrow, it is because that is God’s will."
"When we see each other, I’m sure there will be tears and joy and hugs," Machado's daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, told the Norwegian broadcaster NRK. "I miss hugging her. I miss smelling her and seeing her in person. We’re going to make the most of the time we have with each other."
While I think it's great that Machado will hopefully see her family again at the ceremony, it's not the big story here. What is even more important is who else is attending or has committed to attending.
President Javier Milei of Argentina is expected to travel with a delegation and views Machado as an important figure for standing up to socialism. President Daniel Noboa of Ecuador and President Santiago Peña of Paraguay are also expected to be there. Bolivia's newly elected President Rodrigo Paz may potentially be there as well.
President José Raúl Mulino of Panama is already there and has met with Machado's mother and sister and has given some interviews. He says that Panama "will not back down even an inch" until Maduro is gone, and the man who Venezuelans elected last summer, Edmundo González, is in power. He also said that Panama will help with Venezuela's reconstruction and that he's offered Maduro asylum in Panama, but that he and his cronies are too "arrogant" to accept the offer.
🇵🇦🇻🇪🇳🇴‼️ | En Oslo, el Presidente José Raúl Mulino apareció junto a la madre y la hermana de María Corina Machado, afirmando que Panamá “no va a retroceder ni un centímetro” hasta que el gobierno electo de Venezuela asuma el poder. Recordó que las actas que certifican el triunfo… pic.twitter.com/2ZhIQFJT34
— UHN Plus (@UHN_Plus) December 8, 2025
While Donald Trump won't be in attendance, some members of Congress will be there representing our country, including Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) and Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.).
Over the last few months, I've reported on the fact that much of the Western Hemisphere is swinging to the right. Countries in the Caribbean and Latin America are moving away from socialism, organized crime, and corruption that have plagued the region for years and toward democracy and Western values. This may be one of the biggest and most obvious representations of this — so many of these right-leaning pro-U.S. leaders coming together to support everything Machado is, and doing so on the world stage.
It also tells us something else that I've been trying to point out for a long time. Whatever U.S. involvement in Venezuela looks like in the end, this isn't some "forever war." Many countries in the region support the ousting of Maduro and recognize González as the legitimate president of Venezuela. They're ready to step up to help because they know it will stabilize our entire hemisphere, and they have the leadership now to do so.
Related: Regime Meltdown: Another High-Ranking Maduro Insider Provides Trump with a Shocking Tell-All
I read something yesterday that described the Americas as one big family with some dysfunctional members. Sometimes those dysfunctional family members' messed-up lives bleed into everyone else's. Venezuela, under Maduro, has been one of the most dysfunctional, and it has led to mass migration and drug trafficking, and has allowed terror groups and our adversaries to come camp out in our region.
The thing is, we're not the only country impacted by that. We all face the fallout, and that's why so many others are on our side and partnering with us to fix this. We're just the prominent face of it all because, well, we're the greatest, most powerful country in the world, and we currently have actual leadership that knows that and has the cojones to do something about it.
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