U.S. President Donald Trump said at the White House that he would not be happy if Venezuelan authorities arrested opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Wednesday, when the press asked what would happen if she were detained. Trump said he knew "nothing" of alleged plans to arrest her but noted that Machado was "very kind" to dedicate the Nobel Peace Prize to him when it was announced. The Republican, who often claims the award for himself, stated that his only motivation for resolving conflicts is to "save lives," not the awards. Machado, who has been hiding in Venezuela for the past year, did not arrive in time for the ceremony in Oslo where she was honored with the Nobel Prize but assured that she would be in the Norwegian capital in the coming hours. According to sources in the U.S. government cited by The Wall Street Journal, Machado reportedly left Venezuela by boat for Curacao on Tuesday to travel to Norway in a secret attempt to avoid being detained by the government of Nicolás Maduro. On Wednesday, Trump also announced that the U.S. had intercepted and confiscated an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, escalating tensions between Washington and Caracas. "We just seized a big, very big oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, the biggest ever seized, actually," the president stated at a roundtable with business leaders at the White House.
