(Bloomberg) — In awarding the Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela, the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized “a woman who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.”
It’s hard to predict how that will go down with a US president who famously prefers to keep the spotlight on himself.
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Maria Corina Machado at a protest in Caracas in August 2024 after emerging from hiding.Photographer: Gaby Oraa/Bloomberg
To Donald Trump, the announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize has once again been awarded to someone else risks registering as the latest ignominy in a lifetime of rejection by elites.
The question is how he might register that indignation.
An early indication came from White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung, who posted on X that the committee “proved they place politics over peace.”
Trump has made no secret of his desire to win the Nobel. He’s frequently cited his interventions that he claimed 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.
The Nobel – globally recognized and synonymous with excellence – is iconic in a way that Trump, an obsessive arbiter of brand strength, keenly appreciates.
The obsession took hold when Trump’s original political nemesis, former President Barack Obama, won the award in 2009, just months after taking office. Even Obama’s allies conceded it was more a political repudiation of the Bush administration than a deserved honor.
‘Much more important’
But for Trump, the recognition revealed a rigged game, where prestige was reserved for those already accepted by a global order that had, despite his best efforts, dismissed him as an outsider.
“He won the election and then they gave him the peace prize, right?” Trump told reporters Thursday. “My election was a much more important election.”
That frustration has only deepened since his elevation to the presidency.
In Trump’s first term, he leveraged his close relationships with both Israel and Arab leaders to strike a series of agreements thawing relations across the Middle East. But the world focused more on his record of running roughshod over postwar institutions, and his embrace of conspiracies to contest his electoral loss.
Trump’s years in the wilderness — and the multiple criminal prosecutions he endured — seemed to intensify his hunger for outside recognition. Since returning to office, he has relentlessly pursued peace agreements.
Some of the wars Trump claimed to end actually concluded hostilities years ago. Others continue to see outbursts of violence. But on some occasions the US played a constructive mediating role.
In each case, leaders looking to curry favor with Trump have promoted his cause, symbolically nominating Trump for the award or saying publicly that he deserved it.
Nevertheless, this week’s announcement that the US and partners had brokered a hostage-release deal in the conflict between Israel and Hamas was supposed to be the coup de grace, a genuine accomplishment after two years of bloodshed that would push the president’s candidacy over the top.
Trump’s son, Eric, and the White House’s official accounts posted to social media urging supporters to voice their belief the president should be honored.
Instead, the Nobel committee recognized Machado, the banned Venezuelan opposition leader, “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights.” It was an astute move given Trump’s current ratcheting up of pressure against Nicolas Maduro’s regime.
In the hours before the announcement, Trump seemed to sense the award would once again slip out of his grip.
He 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.
“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.”
The world will still be bracing for how Trump processes losing out.
An early test will be the president’s planned trip in the coming days to Egypt and Israel to celebrate the peace deal. Without the luster of a Nobel, the US president may lose interest during the critical first days of implementing the accord.
Equally, with US forces massed in the Caribbean off Venezuela, there is no Peace Prize that might cause Trump to hold back.
In Norway, politicians are bracing for the possibility Trump might punish the country through tariffs or targeting the country’s sovereign wealth fund, though the president has never suggested punitive action against Oslo.
More generally, world leaders will be watching to see if the loss drives 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.
Speaking to senior military leaders late last month, Trump framed the non-award of the Nobel for his efforts in sweeping terms.
“It will be a big insult to our country, I’ll tell you that,” he said.
–With assistance from Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth and Ott Ummelas.
(Updates with Trump spokesman comment in fifth paragraph.)
