After much fuss, Trump is no longer talking about the Nobel Peace Prize

Around this time last year, Donald Trump was obsessed with one thing, and the whole world was talking about nothing else: the Nobel Peace Prize. The US president kept repeating, to anyone who would listen, that he deserved the award for having ‘put an end to eight conflicts’. Twelve months have passed and it feels like a different era. In a few days’ time, on 9 October, the Norwegian Nobel Committee will announce who will be travelling to Oslo this December to collect the prize, and it seems highly unlikely that it will be Trump. In fact, he hasn’t mentioned it for quite some time.

The Nobel Prize is Trump’s dream, and when it is announced, it will also serve as a reminder to Americans – just a few weeks before the mid-term elections – of just how complicated Trump’s second term in office has become. One of the eight conflicts he claimed to have resolved in 2025 was the one between Israel and Iran, the ‘twelve-day war’ which he boasted of having brought to an end with a ceasefire. In September last year, he had also cited that event in his speech to the UN General Assembly to explain why ‘everyone says I should receive the Nobel Prize’. A year later, returning to the UN, Trump made no mention of the Oslo prize because Iran has become his main front and his biggest problem. The ‘peacemaker’ is now embroiled in a war that he started and does not know how to end, and the Nobel Prize seems a distant memory and a mirage.

Everything has changed in a year. The president who, during his 2024 election campaign, promised to resolve the conflict in Ukraine within 24 hours has still not found a way to make himself useful in protecting Kyiv from Vladimir Putin’s fury and, in the meantime, has created the turmoil in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump can still claim to have brought an end to the most intense phase of the fighting between Israel and Hamas, but uncertainty reigns over Gaza and the Board of Peace created by the American president remains a body with no real influence. Nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize have long since closed; the Oslo committee has announced that 208 individuals and 79 organisations have been nominated – as always, without naming them – but it seems unlikely that Trump stands any chance. Although a few nominations have been put forward for him: certainly that of Florida MP Anna Paulina Luna, a fervent supporter of the president and a heroine of the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement, who officially submitted a request to the Oslo committee to award Trump the prize. Even bookmakers are not taking the prospect very seriously, and this time the White House occupant appears to have less of a chance than several other controversial figures nominated to the Norwegian committee, including Francesca Albanese.

The real political trouble for Trump would be if the Nobel Prize had any connotations that sounded like a rejection of his policies. Among the nominees, for example, is the city of Minneapolis, for the way it resisted ICE’s anti-immigration operations and for what it suffered following the street killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. In Trump’s eyes, awarding the Nobel Prize to the Minnesota city would be tantamount to Norway declaring war on the United States, and the President’s fury would be uncontrollable—as he already made clear last January when he complained to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store (who had to explain to him that it is not the government in Oslo that makes the decisions regarding the Nobel Prize). Nonetheless, Trump could still attempt to turn the situation to his advantage by portraying Norway—and perhaps the entire continent of Europe—as a hotbed of radicals and casting himself as the victim.

In the Oval Office, Trump can console himself with the special ‘peace’ prize awarded to him by his friend, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, and with the original 2025 Nobel gold medal given to him by its rightful winner, the Venezuelan María Corina Machado, in an attempt to curry favour with him. While this will almost certainly not be the right year, an important window of opportunity will nevertheless open up for Trump after the mid-term elections in November to try again. A possible defeat in the congressional elections will greatly weaken him on the domestic front, but as with other presidents in the past, the final two years of a second term offer a good opportunity to try and leave his mark on foreign policy. Those about to leave the White House always have their sights set on the history books – on how they will be remembered by future generations – and foreign policy offers more opportunities for visibility than domestic policy.

The problem is that Trump does not follow the rules set by his predecessors. One can go down in history by securing a major peace deal, signing a nuclear disarmament agreement or a global pact on AI regulation. Or by seizing something by force – albeit at the cost of forfeiting the Nobel Prize for good. Even without considering Greenland, there are potential targets, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, which has returned to the Pentagon’s focus following the raid in Venezuela to capture Nicolás Maduro. One is undoubtedly in Washington’s sights and could find itself back in the spotlight against its will following the mid-term elections: Cuba.