While on Wednesday at Oslo, Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel peace prize in absentia, at Caracas — where the country’s strongman Nicolás Maduro clings to power — talk of war grows as America seizes an oil tanker in the Caribbean.  

Ms. Machado’s efforts to oust Mr. Maduro could be crucial for the future of the country. More significantly, ever-escalating clashes taking place a boat-ride away from Florida are emerging as a major geopolitical power clash. Washington is attempting to reconstruct the Monroe doctrine of power-projection in the Western hemisphere, while Mr. Maduro’s allies at Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran hope to maintain a foothold off America’s shores. 

As Ms. Machado’s daughter, Ana Corina Sosa, accepted the prize on behalf of her mother, American forces in the Caribbean boarded and seized a Venezuelan oil ship. President Trump said it was “the largest ever” such seizure and “for a very good reason.” The vessel was reportedly headed to Communist China in violation of an American embargo on Venezuelan oil exports.

A day earlier American F/A-18s flew off the Venezuelan coast, where Caracas claimed they entered the country’s airspace. The Pentagon, though, reported that the “routine training flight” took place in international skies. A clash is possible as Venezuela has moved most of its 5,000 Russian-made S-300 and other anti-aircraft missiles to deter “imperialist attacks.” 

Mr. Maduro, meanwhile, is partnering with allied countries that operate Venezuela’s resources. “China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Qatar — they own Venezuela in partnership with the government,” a New York-based Venezuelan journalist and activist, Maibort Petit, tells the Sun. Those powers might defend their interests that include military bases near America’s shores.     

Ms. Machado missed the ceremony at Oslo, even though she “has done everything in her power to be able to attend the ceremony here today, a journey in a situation of extreme danger,” the chairman of the Nobel committee, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, said at the start of the event.

A top regime enforcer, Diosdado Cabello, told Venezuelans that Ms. Machado left for Europe last week. Reuters, though, cited an unidentified source who said she took a boat on Tuesday to nearby Curaçao, from where she departed on a private plane for Oslo.

Either way, Ms. Machado is out of the country for the first time since the July 28, 2024, presidential election that an opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, won in a landslide. Mr. Gonzalez attended the Wednesday Nobel ceremony, as did America-allied Presidents Javier Milei of Argentina, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador, and Santiago Peña of Paraguay.

“Mr. Maduro, accept the election result and step down,” the Nobel committee’s Mr. Frydnes said. “His days are numbered,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday when asked if America intends to forcibly remove Mr. Maduro from power. In an interview with Politico the president declined to comment on military moves against Venezuela, including a possible ground invasion. 

In the run-up to the 2024 election Mr. Maduro banned Ms. Machado from participating in the voting. Tired of the poverty, crime, and graft that mark Mr. Maduro’s rule, more than 70 percent of the voters chose Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Maduro then refused to accept the result. He forced Mr. Gonzalez into an exile in Spain, while Ms. Machado went into hiding in the nearly empty American embassy at Caracas. 

“I will be in Oslo, I am on my way to Oslo right now,” Ms. Machado said Wednesday in a recorded phone call played during the Nobel ceremony. “From 1999 onward, the regime dismantled our democracy,” she said in an acceptance speech that was read by her daughter. 

When the Nobel committee announced that Ms. Machado would be awarded the 2025 peace prize, she dedicated her award to Mr. Trump. The president has touted his war-ending and cease-fire agreements around the world, claiming he deserved the award. From her hiding in the American embassy, Ms. Machado encouraged Mr. Trump to unseat Mr. Maduro by force.

Several attempts by Brazilian, Qatari, and other mediators to lure Mr. Maduro for a lavish life at Moscow, Doha, or elsewhere have failed so far. The strongman repeatedly says he will stay in Venezuela until the end of his life. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump moved significant fire power to the Caribbean from other parts of the world to combat narcotic smuggling into America. Yet if Mr. Maduro remains in power, adversaries will perceive it as an American weakness that could invite further aggression.