Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign to secure the Nobel Peace Prize next month appears unlikely to succeed, as the Norwegian Nobel Committee reaffirmed its independence and resistance to outside pressure.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump, 79, has repeatedly claimed he “deserves” the award, pointing to his self-declared success in “ending six wars” and highlighting nominations from foreign leaders including Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Azerbaijan’s Ilham Aliyev. But nominations for this year’s prize closed on January 31 — just 11 days after Trump’s inauguration — making his chances slim.
“The committee considers each nominee on his or her own merits,” said Kristian Berg Harpviken, secretary of the Nobel Committee, in an interview with AFP. He stressed that campaigns and media attention have no bearing on the deliberations, which are based on expert evaluations.
This year, 338 individuals and organisations are in contention, with the winner to be announced on October 10.
Trump has even raised the prize during diplomacy, reportedly bringing it up in a July phone call with Norway’s finance minister, Jens Stoltenberg, though officials declined to confirm details of the discussion.
Analysts and historians in Norway suggest Trump remains an unlikely laureate. “This type of pressure usually turns out to be counter-productive,” said Halvard Leira of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs. Three Nobel historians recently argued that Trump’s admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin — despite the ongoing war in Ukraine — made his candidacy inappropriate.
The Nobel Committee, appointed by Norway’s parliament but operating independently, has a history of defying political considerations. In 2010, it awarded the Peace Prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo despite Oslo’s warnings of a diplomatic fallout with Beijing.
“The members of the Nobel Committee would have to have lost their minds” to award Trump the prize, the historians wrote in a joint op-ed.
