When Venezuela’s opposition leader María Corina Machado walked into the White House on Thursday, she came bearing the gift US President Donald Trump has long coveted: a Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado, a fierce critic of Venezuela’s former strongman Nicolás Maduro, won the award last year for her campaign for greater democracy. Now she was leaving the medal in the White House, hoping the gesture might buy her something far more valuable: US backing in the fight to lead Venezuela’s post-Maduro future.
But all she appeared to get in return for her audacious move was a Trump-branded swag bag – and little clarity.
Machado is one of two figures vying for the leadership of a…