President Donald Trump’s demands for a Nobel Peace Prize are being met with laughs in Europe, a new report has alleged.
Trump, 79, has lobbied hard to be awarded the prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but the Financial Times reports that “few” in Oslo believe the president has a real chance of receiving the honor when its winner is announced on Friday.
The prize committee, comprising a human rights advocate, a foreign policy expert, and three former ministers, is expected not to look kindly on Trump’s ordering of American troops to patrol the streets of U.S. cities under Democratic leadership.
Another lateral move for Trump’s hopes of winning is his symbolic renaming of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, an unnamed European Diplomat told the Financial Times.
Trump’s winning the peace prize “would send out a strange signal,” the diplomat added.
The British newspaper also quoted a European diplomat as saying that Trump’s outlandish claims, such as his assertion that he has ended as many as 10 global conflicts, are not taken at face value across the pond.
“It has been hard to take some of his proclamations seriously,” they said.
That same diplomat added, however, that it would be a “big deal” if Trump ended hostilities in Gaza before Friday’s award announcement. The Financial Times noted that Trump has been pushing this week to do just that.
Any success in the Middle East still may be for naught, however. The prize being awarded on Friday is technically based on actions undertaken in 2024.
There is precedent for the committee awarding the prize to a U.S. president during the first year of their term, however. Annoyingly for Trump, the prize was awarded to former President Barack Obama in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.”
Trump has said he believes the committee is biased against him.
“If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel prize given to me in 10 seconds,” he complained last year. Those complaints have since turned to pleas and veiled threats.
Trump reportedly mentioned the award in at least one call with the finance minister and former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. The pressure campaign compelled Norway’s Foreign Minister, Espen Barth Eide, to emphasize that the committee is independent of the government.
Nina Græger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, believes that Trump is only further hindering his chances by lobbying for the award with the help of his sycophants in Congress.
“Putting pressure on the committee, going on talking about ‘I need the prize, I’m the worthy candidate’—it’s not a very peaceful approach,” Græger told the Financial Times.
Others have also warned Trump that he is jeopardizing chances by so publicly—and repeatedly—calling for the award.
Asle Toje, deputy leader of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told Reuters plainly that the committee does not like pressure campaigns.
“Some candidates push for it really hard, and we do not like it,” he said. “We are used to work in a locked room without being attempted to be influenced. It is hard enough as it is to reach an agreement among ourselves, without having more people trying to influence us.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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