World awaits Trump’s reaction as Nobel Peace Prize slips from his hand

The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela on Friday, recognising her as “a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.” While White House came forward to give its statement and Russian President Vladimir Putin also spoke about it, Trump has yet to give his reaction.

For the past few months, Trump has made clear his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming to have ended seven wars. (Reuters)

It is hard to predict how this will go down with a US president who famously prefers to keep the spotlight on himself. One of the initial reactions was the post from White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung, who posted on X that the committee “proved they place politics over peace.”

For the past few months, Trump has made clear his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize, claiming to have ended seven wars. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Trump told attendees that “everyone says” he should be awarded the prize.

“Trump’s campaign to get the prize has been extraordinary,” Committee secretary Kristian Berg Harpviken told Bloomberg News in Oslo Friday after the announcement was made.

Trump’s obsession with the Nobel Prize began when his original political nemesis, former President Barack Obama, won the award in 2009, just months after taking office.

Also read: Putin reacts to Nobel committee’s decision on not awarding peace prize to Trump: ‘Prestige of the award…’

Trump termed the recognition as rigged and told reporters that, “He won the election and then they gave him the peace prize, right?”. “My election was a much more important election,” he added.

The Nobel committee recognised Machado, the banned Venezuelan opposition leader, “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights.” In the hours before the announcement, Trump insisted to reporters in the Oval Office that his diplomatic efforts were born out of an earnest concern for world peace, and suggested that he didn’t expect to win, Bloomberg reported.

“Whatever they do is — is fine,” Trump said. “I know this, I didn’t do it for that, I did it because I saved a lot of lives.”

Also read: ‘We base our decision only on…’: Norwegian committee on why Trump didn’t get Nobel Peace Prize

While the world is yet to see Trump’s reaction to missing out on the prize, an early test will be the president’s planned trip in the coming days to Egypt and Israel to celebrate the peace deal.

In Norway, politicians are bracing for the possibility that Trump might punish the country through tariffs or target the country’s sovereign wealth fund. However, the US president has never suggested punitive action against Oslo.

The world is yet to see if the loss of the prize will drive Trump away from joint diplomatic efforts. Russia’s war on Ukraine remains a persistent concern, with Trump having previously suggested he might abandon support for Kyiv and let the countries fight it out.

Last month, talking about the possibility of him missing out on the Nobel Prize, Trump said, “It will be a big insult to our country, I’ll tell you that.”

(With inputs from Bloomberg)