Can Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize – and who nominated him?
The U.S. president claims he has ended ‘seven wars’ – even though many of the conflicts are still taking place. Experts tell Maira Butt that while Trump is unlikely to win, he should not be ruled out completely
President Donald Trump appears to have achieved the seemingly impossible on the eve of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement this week — Israel and Hamas agreeing to the first phase of a historic peace deal.
Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas have called on the Nobel Committee to award the president the prize, saying he had “brought us light through our darkest times” with his 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
While much still hangs in the balance, Arab nations that had been reluctant to engage in talks have responded to the author of The Art of the Deal approaching peace the way he approaches trade.
“I develop relationships with people — and sometimes those relationships lead to great things...” he told Fox News presenter Sean Hannity in response to news of an impending ceasefire.
The fact that Trump covets the Nobel prize is no secret and he doesn’t have much longer to hold on — the announcement will be made on Friday.
His public campaign for the accolade started off with an apparent joke in 2018: "Everyone thinks so but I would never say it,” he said of a possible nomination. “The prize I want is victory for the world.”
Five years on, his stance had changed to “I deserve it, but they will never give it to me” when asked about it in February this year after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “I should have gotten it four or five times” when quizzed in June.
But, despite polling suggesting otherwise, the former Apprentice star is a contender for the prize, which its creator Alfred Nobel said should be awarded to the person who has done the “most or best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.
FanDuel, an American betting company, has Trump just behind bookies’ favorite Yulia Navalnaya — the widow of the late Russian dissident and Putin opponent Alexei Navalny — and the aid organisation Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms.
Who nominated Trump?
A number of politicians and organizations have backed the president for the prestigious prize.
Israel’s Netanyahu put his name forward in July, with the governments of Pakistan and Cambodia among others to nominate the president.
In the U.S. Republican Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter nominated Trump in June, saying he had brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran showing “bold action and courage”.
A senior Ukrainian politician also nominated Trump, only to withdraw the suggestion in June this year and accuse the president of appeasing Vladimir Putin.
Can he win and who makes the decision?
The Nobel Committee is made up of five people, the majority of whom have been critical of Trump in public.
However, its decision-making criteria are not straightforward and it can serve a symbolic or “geopolitical” purpose as well as reward real achievements and results.
“The trouble with the criteria is it’s so abstract,” says Professor Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, principal lecturer in politics and international relations at Nottingham Trent University.
He points to “aspirational” awards given to Barack Obama, who won the award in 2009 before his first year in office was up, purely on the back of his election campaign. It led to the Nobel secretary later saying that the former president’s win had been a “mistake”.
Other controversial or notable Nobel Laureates include U.S. diplomat and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger for his role in ending the Vietnam War in 1973, despite being accused of war crimes.
“Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Tom Lehrer, the American musician, satirist and mathematician, of the diplomat’s win.
“In a world where that can happen, then absolutely I think it is possible for Trump to win the Nobel Peace Prize,” Professor Mokhefi-Ashton added, noting that Trump is very focused on “legacy”.
But Theo Zenou, a historian and research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, has said he would not place bets on Trump winning.
“Trump has been incredibly vocal about his desire, his craving for the Peace Prize. He says he ‘deserves’ one, it would be a ‘travesty’ if he didn’t and so on. That extreme entitlement won’t please the committee,” he says.
“They don’t want to be seen to be giving in to pressure or caving in to bravado. They usually prefer people whose work speaks for itself. You don’t get the Oscar for Best Actor for continuously saying you gave the best performance, you let your work speak for itself”.
Furthermore, he points to Trump’s claim that he has “ended seven wars”, an oft-repeated phrase that has been handled with scepticism by his critics.
Last month, the U.S. State Department listed the seven wars the “President of Peace” had ended “in just seven months.” They included: Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, Pakistan and India, DRC and Rwanda, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“Trump has a very facile definition of peace, which is he thinks peace is the absence of fighting, the absence of people shooting at each other with machine guns, but obviously thats not what peace is,” says Mr Zenou, giving the example of Iran and Israel’s ongoing hostility, which he says cannot be said to have ended following the end of 12 days of fighting.
“There are many conflicts that have ebbs and flows and real peace takes a long time to achieve.”
Professor Mokhefi-Ashton says that the committee will be looking for evidence of a “durable peace” and not look like they have “jumped the gun”.
“Unless his proposed 20-point peace plan for the Middle East produces tangible, sustainable results — which it is a long way from doing at the moment — it’s hard to see the committee viewing his efforts as prize-worthy,” Professor Andrew Moran, head of politics and international relations at London Metropolitan University said, seconding those claims.
While a ceasefire is welcome, Prof Moran says that the Committee will look for “reconciliation and long-term stability, not just a temporary reduction in violence.”
Timing is another issue for Trump
Nominations for the prize closed in January. Their full details are not revealed for another 50 years, so it is not possible to know for certain how popular any given nominee was.
Despite Trump’s efforts to bring Ukraine and Russia to the table, Vladimir Putin’s war continues unabated.
And while there is an optimistic mood in Israel over his peace deal for Gaza, the agreement there likely comes far too late to the announcement on Friday to factor in.
Trump’s comments on other issues could hurt his chances
Trump’s repeated comments denying the climate crisis will likely be considered controversial for the committee.
And some of his other actions are seemingly contradictory to the notion of peace, such as rebranding the U.S. Department of Defense to the Department of War and promoting a “warrior ethos.”
That doesn’t mean he won’t be in the running again next year, with Prof Mokhefi-Ashton saying that Trump is far more of a long-term planner than people give him credit for. A loss this year won’t mean a loss forever to him, and he is unlikely to give up.
“Trump has made an entire career of beating the odds of doing things that no one would have thought possible,” Prof Mokhefi-Ashton says, although he doesn’t think the chances are high that he will win, calling it the “coup of a lifetime.”
“People underestimate him, and people who have failed going up against him have failed exactly for that reason.”
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