The US President Donald Trump has long sought the Nobel Peace Prize. But who gets it is decided by a five-person committee, most of whom have openly expressed their displeasure with the American president.
This is reported by The Washington Post.
Trumpʼs desire to win the Nobel Prize has been a constant throughout his two terms in office, and his efforts have intensified in recent months. But at least three of the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee have publicly criticized Trump, and he will have a hard time winning their votes.
Trumpʼs campaign has ranged from public comments during meetings with other world leaders to private efforts with Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who has developed strong ties with the US president as NATO secretary general, and whose Norwegian Workersʼ Party is involved in the parliamentary nomination of members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Trump takes credit for stopping a growing number of conflicts. In a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on August 18, he said he had ended six wars this year. Within days, he raised that figure to “7 to 10”.
But for all his merits, Trump will need to win over the committee members, who so far at least appear skeptical. The chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Jørgen Watne Frydnes, in December condemned “the undermining of freedom of speech even in democratic countries”, mentioning Trump by name.
“Trump made over 100 verbal attacks on the media during his election campaign,” said Frydnes, who also headed PEN Norway.
Frydnes is a Stoltenberg appointee from the Workersʼ Party, which is in power in Norway.
In a country where, according to a “Novus” poll in October, only 7% of people said they would vote for Trump over former Vice President Kamala Harris, skepticism about the US president is widespread. Some members of the Nobel committee make no secret of feeling the same way.
“After just over 100 days in office, [Trump] has successfully begun the process of dismantling American democracy and is doing everything he can to destroy the liberal and rules-based world order,” a committee member and a former center-right Norwegian education minister Kristin Klemet wrote in May.
The third member of the committee has posted several critical messages about the president during his first term. In a Facebook photo posted the day before the 2020 election, Gree Larsen was wearing a red baseball cap with the words “Make Human Rights Great Again”.
Larsen, a former center-left politician, also tweeted in 2017 that "Trump is putting millions of lives at risk" and criticized the decision to cut US foreign aid.
Two other members of the committee have not previously been openly critical of Trump. One of them, academic Asle Toce, has written sympathetically about Trump’s legal struggles during the Biden administration.
Committee Chairman Frydnes, when asked in January about Trumpʼs Nobel aspirations, did not directly answer whether he would ever be willing to award the president the prize.
"Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a head of state is often probably the most controversial. Because when you are a head of state, you have power. You have power, and you have used power. Your hands are often stained with blood if it is a conflict. But you also have the power to do things afterwards, which complicates the picture," Frydnes said.
Trump will not be eligible to receive this yearʼs award, which will be announced in October, as the deadline for nominations was in January. The 2025 shortlist from the Peace Research Organization includes:
- Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani for his efforts in bringing peace to Gaza;
- The Carter Center, founded by the US President (1977-1981) Jimmy Carter;
- The International Criminal Court, whose senior officials Trump is prosecuting for their efforts to investigate the activities of American and Israeli officials.
But he at least has a chance of winning the prize next year. Some Norwegians are trying to keep the door open if Trump manages to make peace in Ukraine.
- Trump was first nominated for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize in June by the Pakistani government for his “resolute diplomatic intervention and decisive leadership in the India-Pakistan crisis”. In early August, after the signing of the Azerbaijani-Armenian declaration at the White House on the renunciation of the use of military force, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan did the same.
- According to the White House, Trumpʼs nomination is also supported by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Gabonese President Brice Olighi Nguema, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirege.
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