Venezuelan opposition leader says she presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize

María Corina Machado did not reveal if US President Donald Trump accepted the award during their White House meeting.

A middle-aged Latino woman waving to her supporters as she walks through a crowd.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado waves to supporters following her White House meeting with Donald Trump. Source: Getty / Chip Somodevilla

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado says she presented her Nobel Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump during a White House meeting on Thursday local time.

Speaking to reporters, she did not say if Trump accepted the prize during their first face-to-face meeting since the US ousted her long-time foe, Nicolás Maduro.

Trump has previously called her a "freedom fighter" but dismissed the idea of installing her to lead Venezuela after ousting Maduro, saying she did not have enough domestic support.


A classified CIA assessment presented to Trump concluded that Maduro loyalists, including Rodriguez, were best positioned to maintain stability.


Earlier, US officials said they had seized another Venezuela-linked tanker.
The seizure marks the sixth vessel targeted since mid-December that was either carrying Venezuelan oil or had done so in the past. The officials, speaking to Reuters news agency on the condition of anonymity, said the seizure took place in the Caribbean.

The US military's Southern Command confirmed the pre-dawn operation, saying US forces apprehended tanker Veronica "without incident". It said the Veronica was "operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean".

"The only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully," Southern Command said in a statement.

Guyana-flagged Aframax tanker Veronica departed empty from Venezuelan waters in early January, according to shipping documents from state company PDVSA and monitoring service TankerTrackers.com. The vessel had not returned to Venezuela as other ships have done in recent days.
The seizures began as part of Trump's campaign to force Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro out of power, which culminated in US forces swooping into the country to grab him and his wife on 3 January.

Since then, Trump has said the US plans to control Venezuela's oil resources indefinitely as it seeks to rebuild the country's dilapidated oil industry in a $150 billion (US$100 billion) plan.

US targets more vessels for seizure

The US government has filed for court warrants to seize dozens more tankers linked to the Venezuelan oil trade, four sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as it consolidates control of oil shipments in and out of the South American country.

The vessels intercepted so far have been either under US sanctions or part of a "shadow fleet" of ships that disguise their origins to move oil from major sanctioned producers — Iran, Russia or Venezuela.
Most of the Venezuela-linked vessels seized so far were flying fake flags or their flag registrations had been cancelled before the interceptions, the maritime authorities of Panama, Cook Islands and Guyana have told Reuters.

Last week, the US seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker that was being shadowed by a Russian submarine after pursuing it for more than two weeks across the Atlantic.
The move was condemned by Moscow.


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Source: Reuters



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