President Trump failed in his bid to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Norwegian Nobel committee announcing Friday that María Corina Machado was given this year’s award for promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.
Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the committee, said the opposition was honored for being a “key, unifying figure in a political opposition that was once deeply divided – an opposition that found common ground in the demand for free elections and representative government.”
Trump’s bid for the award was always going to be a long shot, with the deadline for nominations on February 1, just weeks into his second term. This was before he made major moves to settle what he describes as seven wars in seven months, though some remain largely unresolved.
And many of Trump’s most public nominations for the award came after the deadline. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) submitted a nomination in December recognizing the president’s 2020 deal forging ties between Israel and two Gulf countries, called the Abraham Accords.
Still, the decision is sure to mark an added grievance for Trump, who has long criticized the organization for initially overlooking the Abraham Accords in its considerations. The 2021 prize, which the Abraham Accords would have been eligible for, went to two journalists promoting free speech under oppressive regimes in the Philippines and Russia.
And Friday’s ceremony came shortly after Trump announced he brought Israel and Hamas to agreement on a ceasefire deal in the Gaza Strip, the first phase of his 20-point plan to end the war. The ceasefire announcement drew calls from Israeli leaders and Trump’s supporters that the president deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
“There is no doubt that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for this,” Israel’s President Isaac Herzog posted on X.
But the head of the independent Nobel committee, Jorgen Watne Frydnes, earlier told Norwegian tabloid VG that the decision on this year’s award was made Monday.
Trump has been highly critical of the Nobel committee, yet he has publicly lobbied for the prize. In September, he warned that being passed over for the award this year would be “an insult to our country,” addressing an extraordinary gathering of hundreds of military leaders in Virginia late last month.
Trump’s public griping also likely worked against him. Nina Græger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, earlier told the Associated Press that the committee doesn’t want to be seen as caving to political pressure.
At a campaign rally in North Carolina in 2024, Trump repeated his criticisms that President Obama, awarded the prize in the first year of his presidency for his work to strengthen international diplomacy, did not deserve the Nobel Prize and that he is being repeatedly snubbed.
“He didn’t do anything, what I’ve done is incredible, the Abraham Accords alone,” Trump said.
So far, the Abraham Accords is likely the president’s best case for an award, as the Nobel committee weighs how sustained efforts and promotion of multilateralism contributes to international peace and security.
The Accords, which established ties between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have endured amid more than two years of regional conflict as Israel has battled against Iran and Iranian-backed proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen.
Trump has ramped up his peace efforts in his second term, though the results remain an open question.
Trump helped secure ceasefires between Israel and Iran, Cambodia and Thailand, and India and Pakistan.
Cambodian and Pakistani officials issued Nobel nominations over his interventions, while India rejected that the U.S. played a major role in settling its conflict.
Likewise, fighting in eastern Congo has intensified even as Trump has celebrated ending that war. There remain bitter disagreements between Ethiopia and Egypt over a major dam. A recent peace signing between Armenia and Azerbaijan is viewed as a welcome development but faces a long road towards implementation.
Still, Trump used his address to the United Nations in September to tell member-states that “everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” for his involvement in these seven conflicts.
And even as Trump portrays himself as peacemaker-in-chief, he has taken extraordinary military action throughout his second term in office: Striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, deploying the U.S. military into American cities and declaring “armed conflict” with drug trafficking cartels in Venezuela.
Trump has admitted his efforts to get Russian President Vladimir Putin to cease his war in Ukraine have been more difficult than he originally believed.
Ukrainian Member of Parliament Oleksandr Merezhko in June withdrew his nomination for Trump for the Nobel, saying at the time he had “lost any sort of faith and belief” the president could achieve an end to the war.
And Trump is currently engaged in one of his biggest peace challenges, to get Israel and Hamas to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, secure the release of 20 living hostages and the bodies of 28 others, and provide relief to nearly two million Palestinian enduring a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Families of hostages held by Hamas have invoked Trump’s desire for the Nobel Peace Prize as a major motivator for getting to a ceasefire, with three Israeli Nobel laureates and an Israeli academy president – who all qualify to make nominations – promising to nominate the president if he succeeds in achieving peace.
World leaders have also dangled Nobel peace nominations to curry favor with Trump.
Only three sitting U.S. presidents have won the award.
President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919 for being the leading architect of the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations. President Theodore Roosevelt was recognized in 1906 for negotiating peace in the Russo-Japanese war. And Obama was awarded the prize in 2009.
President Jimmy Carter was awarded the prize after his presidency, in 2002, for international conflict resolution. And while out of office, former Vice President Al Gore was awarded the prize in 2007 for his work on combatting climate change.
Among the recent recipients include in 2024 the award presented to Nihon Hidankyo, an organization of survivors from the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 2023 award went to imprisoned Iranian human rights advocate Narges Mohammadi, who is still behind bars.
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