Trump’s Nobel Peace chase clashes with past prize traditions
The winner for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize is to be announced in a few days, just as speculation grows if President Donald Trump’s name will be on the list after his repeated claims he ended “seven unendable” wars this year. The committee’s secretary is unfazed by Trump’s push and said award campaigns aren’t out of the ordinary.
So, could Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize? If his name appeared on the list of 338 nominees for the prize that the Norwegian Nobel Committee put together, then he could. But if his name doesn’t appear on this year’s list, he could be nominated for next year’s prize, which would be the award’s 125th anniversary.
“Several campaigns are underway this year,” committee secretary Kristian Berg Harpviken told French newspaper Le Monde. “Some more sophisticated than others and therefore harder to detect, with people coming to Oslo to give lectures, visiting the Nobel Institute or trying to meet with committee members in hopes of promoting a candidate.”
And the committee has historically remained quiet about nominees.
“The Nobel Committee does not confirm the names of nominees, neither to the media nor to the candidates themselves,” according to its website. “There are cases where names of candidates appear in the media, either as a result of sheer speculation or because individuals themselves report to have nominated specific candidates.”
Self-nominations are not accepted. So someone else would need to recommend Trump to the committee.
One person has added Trump’s name to the ring — U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. He told the committee the president deserved the prize due to his alleged cooling of tensions in the Middle East with the Abraham Accords. Still, that agreement is in jeopardy with the ongoing Israel-Hamas War as several Arab nations voiced support for Palestinians and urged Israel to agree to a truce, Reuters reported in September.
Officials from those nations have amplified findings from scholars and the United Nations that said Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians. Israel and Hamas are having indirect ceasefire talks in Egypt to end the conflict, which began two years ago on Oct. 7. About 1,200 Israelis and more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.
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Four U.S. presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize since its 1901 start: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.
No matter Trump’s eligibility, if he wins the Nobel Peace Prize at any point in his presidency, he’d join a small list of U.S. presidents who earned the honor. Former presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have all earned the award.
Trump’s campaign for Nobel Peace Prize
The president’s quest to earn the highly sought-after award arose after he and his allies claimed that Trump ended seven wars without the U.N.’s help: Cambodia and Thailand; Kosovo and Serbia; the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda; Pakistan and India; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“In a period of just seven months, I have ended seven ‘unendable’ wars…” Trump said to the group. “No president or prime minister — and for that matter, no other country — has ever done anything close to that.”
But that’s not completely true:
- Rwanda restarted violence in Congo since the June truce.
- Serbia and Kosovo’s war ended in 1999 and Kosovo gained independence in 2008.
- India has repeatedly rejected Trump’s claim to end the conflict with Pakistan.
- An Ethiopian official made a similar objection.
Theo Zenou, a historian and journalist, told PBS that the committee has prioritized sustained peace over quick-success truces, which could be difficult to measure in Trump’s short time.
“There’s a huge difference between getting fighting to stop in the short-term and resolving the root causes of the conflict,” Zenou told the public media station.
However, Obama won the award in 2009, months into his first term for “strengthening international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” according to the award’s press release at the time.
Controversy about Trump’s policy may not even affect his nomination. England-based Nottingham Trent University Professor Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton told The Independent that former secretary of state Henry Kissinger won the award for ending the Vietnam War in 1973. Kissinger has been accused of war crimes for bombing campaigns in Cambodia and other claims.
“In a world where that can happen, then absolutely I think it is possible for Trump to win the Nobel Peace Prize,” Mokhefi-Ashton said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump in July that he nominated the Republican president for the prestigious award. But his July recommendation is ineligible for the 2025 prize, the Associated Press reported. Families of Israeli hostages also nominated Trump, but their bid is ineligible.
A campaign for the 2026 prize
The president could win the award in 2026. Along with Netanyahu’s nomination, several nations have told Trump they put his name in the hat.
That list included Pakistan, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe and Gabonese President Brice Oligui Nguema, according to Newsweek.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
