Because the Norwegian Nobel Committee prepares to announce this 12 months’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, one title, one persona hovers over its choice – the US president, Donald Trump.
Since moving into workplace in January, Trump has made it clear that he believes he ought to win the coveted prize since he has, he claims, ended a minimum of “seven wars”.
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On Wednesday, he put himself within the entrance seat to say credit score for the doable finish to an eighth conflict, after Israel and Hamas agreed to the primary stage of a ceasefire deal that’s rooted in Trump’s 20-point peace plan, which he had unveiled final week.
This 12 months’s award announcement additionally comes amid Russia’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine and conflicts in lots of different international locations.
There are 338 nominees for the prize, and the Nobel Committee — a bunch of 5 folks chosen by the Storting, the Norwegian parliament— picks the winner.
Is Trump certified to win the prize? Right here’s what we all know:
Why does Trump say he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize?
Talking on the United Nations Normal Meeting (UNGA) in New York in September, Trump mentioned, “Everybody says I ought to get the Nobel Peace Prize.”
“I ended seven wars. No president or prime minister has ever accomplished something near that,” he added.
Trump famous that the wars he ended embrace Cambodia and Thailand; Kosovo and Serbia; the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda; Pakistan and India; Israel and Iran; Egypt and Ethiopia; and Armenia and Azerbaijan.
What are Trump’s credentials?
Among the wars Trump claims to have ended are ones he participated in himself. His function in another ceasefires is disputed. Nonetheless, there are different conflicts the place the concerned events do credit score him with enjoying a key function as mediator.
- In September, Trump mentioned he “deserved” to win the prize for the opportunity of ending Israel’s two-year-long conflict on Gaza. Whereas US weapons and the nation’s ironclad diplomatic help for Israel have been crucial in permitting the conflict to proceed, Trump can also be broadly believed to have pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greater than his predecessor, Joe Biden, to finish the preventing. Final week, Trump unveiled his 20-point peace plan. Now, with the announcement of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the conflict is the closest it has been to its conclusion.
- The conflict between Iran and Israel in June ended with a ceasefire brokered by Trump. However the bout of preventing, which began with Israel placing Iranian nuclear amenities, killing scientists and bombing residential neighbourhoods, additionally included the US as an energetic participant. Trump took part in it by ordering his army to strike three Iranian nuclear websites. Iran struck again by hitting the biggest US army base within the Center East, in Qatar, earlier than the ceasefire was introduced.
- In Might, India and Pakistan waged an aerial conflict, bombing one another’s army bases. India mentioned it additionally hit “terrorist” bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, whereas Pakistan claimed India killed dozens of civilians. Finally, Trump introduced a ceasefire after 4 days of preventing. However whereas Pakistan credit the US president for serving to halt the preventing, India insists he had no role.
- Cambodia and Thailand noticed 5 days of hostilities in August, and a truce started after cellphone calls from not solely Trump, but in addition mediation from Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and a delegation of Chinese language negotiators. To date, solely Cambodia has thanked Trump for his function.
- Relations between Serbia and Kosovo have been tense for the reason that early 2000s. The European Union and NATO have at all times been key mediators on this area. Kosovo and Serbia signed a deal in 2020 underneath Trump throughout his first time period. Whereas relations stay tense, the 2 haven’t been concerned in a full-blown conflict since Trump’s return to energy.
- Trump says he ended a conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia. However whereas the 2 nations have had tense relations, particularly over a hydroelectric dam which opened on a tributary of the Nile River, they haven’t been in any conflict.
- Rwanda and the DRC signed a peace deal in June, brokered by Trump. The ceasefire is fragile and tensions between the 2 international locations stay excessive, however the deal is holding for now.
- In August, Trump oversaw a peace settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the White Home, which guarantees to finish a simmering battle that usually exploded into open conflict for the reason that dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. However in a subsequent interview with Fox & Associates, Trump appeared confused in regards to the international locations he had mediated between. He advised his hosts that he had ended a conflict between Azerbaijan and Albania.
“I’d be stunned if President Trump will likely be awarded this 12 months’s peace prize as he has not but made a considerable sufficient contribution to peace to win the prize,” Nina Graeger, director of the Peace Analysis Institute Oslo, advised Al Jazeera.
“Whereas he deserves credit score for his efforts to finish the conflict in Gaza, it’s too early to inform whether or not the peace proposal will likely be applied and result in lasting peace,” she mentioned.
Why does Trump need the Nobel Prize?
Trump says he deserves it — and lots of of his supporters agree. However the US president has additionally usually in contrast his overseas coverage initiatives with the worldwide recognition that former US President Barack Obama acquired throughout his stint in energy.
Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen worldwide diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” — regardless that he had been in energy for only some months at that time. Obama’s win has lengthy been criticised, given his function in increasing using drone assaults abroad, together with in opposition to US residents, and his continuation of a number of wars all over the world.
“If I have been named Obama, I’d have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,” Trump mentioned final 12 months.
Based on Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv, in July, Trump additionally known as Norway’s Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg — the previous NATO chief — to debate tariffs and foyer for the Nobel Peace Prize.
However hasn’t Trump additionally been an aggressor?
Graeger mentioned in the case of deciding on a winner, the Nobel Committee could wish to have a look at the sum of a candidate’s efforts in direction of peace.
“Trump’s retreat from worldwide establishments, want to take over Greenland from the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally, in addition to infringements on primary democratic rights inside his personal nation, don’t align nicely with the desire of Alfred Nobel,” she mentioned.
In addition to collaborating in bombing Iran along with Israel in June, Trump additionally ordered US forces to assault Somalia in February, claiming he was focusing on senior ISIL (ISIS) management in that nation.
In March, he launched large-scale strikes on Yemen’s Houthis over the group’s Crimson Sea assaults, and in September, he ordered US forces to strike boats within the Caribbean, together with a minimum of three originating from Venezuela, claiming they have been ferrying drug smugglers and narcotics to the US.
The US president has additionally threatened to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.
Is violence a no-no for Nobel Peace Prize winners?
The Nobel Peace Prize, established underneath the desire of Sweden’s Alfred Nobel, is given to “the one who shall have accomplished probably the most or one of the best work for fraternity between nations, the abolition or discount of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.
However in actuality, the prize is shrouded in controversy.
In 1973, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was one in every of its winners, for negotiating a ceasefire and ending the US’s Vietnam Battle. However Kissinger had wrecked earlier ceasefire efforts, prolonging the conflict. The carpet bombing marketing campaign he oversaw in Cambodia underneath President Richard Nixon killed tons of of hundreds of individuals. Nixon additionally backed Pakistan’s massacres in present-day Bangladesh because the latter’s independence motion reached its crescendo in 1971. Kissinger and Nixon additionally funnelled hundreds of thousands of {dollars} into enabling a army coup in opposition to the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. And after he received the Nobel, Kissinger in 1975 additionally greenlit Indonesian President Soeharto’s invasion of East Timor. Soeharto was a crucial Chilly Battle ally of the US.
In 1994, then-Israeli Overseas Minister Shimon Peres received the Nobel alongside his Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat for the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords. Peres had been prime minister beforehand, would turn out to be PM once more in 1995, and was later additionally Israel’s president.
However 4 many years earlier, as deputy director basic of Israel’s Defence Ministry, Peres had helped plan the Suez Battle. Throughout his premiership within the Nineteen Eighties, Israel additionally launched a long-range missile assault on the workplace of the Palestinian Liberation Group (PLO) in Tunisia.
Myanmar’s pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi received the prize in 1991. However many years later, calls grew for the award to be withdrawn over her function overseeing massacres in opposition to the Rohingya, when she was the nation’s de facto chief between 2016 and 2021.
After which there’s Obama. “When Barack Obama acquired the prize in 2009, critics argued that it was untimely, as he had been in workplace for lower than a 12 months and had not but proven concrete ends in selling peace,” Graeger mentioned.
“When awarding the prize to Obama, they emphasised his visions relating to the significance of multilateral diplomacy and disarmament, and one may argue that he represented a reset of worldwide relations and cooperation,” she added.
All of those selections, Graeger mentioned, do make clear the boundaries the Nobel Committee is prepared to push in selecting the winner of the prize.
“Whereas the Nobel Committee doesn’t got down to trigger controversy, they don’t shrink back from it in the event that they really feel they’ve a laureate who’s deserving of the Prize,” she mentioned.
So can Trump nonetheless win — and who has endorsed him?
Nominations for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize closed on January 31, simply days after Trump returned to the White Home.
In July, Netanyahu mentioned he nominated Trump for the prize, adopted by Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet in August. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev additionally collectively endorsed Trump for the prize in August.
Inside the president’s cupboard, Steve Witkoff, his chief envoy to the Center East, has mentioned Trump was “the one best candidate” for the prize. US Consultant Buddy Carter, a Republican, additionally despatched a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in September. US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, additionally mentioned Trump deserves the prize.
However nominations made after July 31 will rely for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, in keeping with the principles of the Nobel Committee. The federal government of Pakistan has already nominated Trump for the prize for subsequent 12 months.
Al Jazeera requested the Norwegian organisers of the prize whether or not Trump’s candidacy was into account, however there was no response as but.
What may occur if Trump doesn’t win?
Talking at a US army assembly in Virginia in September, Trump mentioned it could be “an enormous insult to America” if he weren’t given the award.
“They’ll give it to some man that didn’t do a rattling factor … they’ll give it to the man who wrote a e book in regards to the thoughts of Donald Trump,” he mentioned.
Inside Norway, questions have arisen over how Trump may reply if he doesn’t win. The US has already imposed 15 p.c tariffs on the nation’s exports.
The Trump administration additionally advised CNBC final month that the US is “very troubled” after Norway — which has an roughly $2 trillion sovereign fund — introduced it could divest from US firm Caterpillar over its hyperlinks to Israel’s conflict on Gaza.
However in an interview with Bloomberg on October 3, Overseas Minister Espen Barth Eid mentioned Norway’s authorities just isn’t concerned within the Nobel Peace Prize choices.
“It’s merely as much as the Nobel Committee. It’s vital to recollect it’s an impartial committee,” he mentioned.
