Donald Trump’s Nobel Snub: The prize he cannot threaten or buy – and what next

Since Donald Trump has returned as president — buoyed perhaps by a popular mandate and the messianic belief that he is God’s Chosen One after dodging a political and legal bullet — he has governed with a kind of wanton abandon rarely seen in American history.

He has shredded constitutional norms in both letter and spirit, dusted off archaic laws to go after his enemies, and threatened the foundations of global trade with tariffs so erratic that even his closest advisers struggle to explain them. Yet for all his power, bluster, and appetite for confrontation, there is still one thing he cannot threaten, bully, or buy: the Nobel Peace Prize.Donald Trump has always treated the Nobel as if it were the missing scene in the movie of his life — the final act where the misunderstood genius is vindicated and the haters eat their words. In his mind, there’s a slow clap in Oslo, a standing ovation from the world’s elites, and a golden medal pressed into his palm while Barack Obama sulks somewhere in Martha’s Vineyard. Reality, however, keeps refusing to follow the script.

Once again, the Nobel Committee has announced its decision, and once again, Trump’s name was nowhere to be found.

The Snub Everyone Saw Coming

This year’s outcome surprised no one. From Oslo insiders to Washington pundits, the verdict was always the same: Trump was never going to win. The Nobel Peace Prize, for all its hypocrisies, is meant to honour those who “advance fraternity among nations” — those who build peace through cooperation, diplomacy, and trust. Trump’s foreign policy has been the antithesis of that ethos. He walked away from the Paris Climate Accord, gutted funding to the World Health Organization, tore up arms-control treaties, and waged tariff wars against allies.

He treated NATO like an extortion racket and the United Nations like a punchline.The Nobel Committee, scarred by its own past mistakes — Kissinger’s prize for Vietnam,

Suu Kyi

’s halo before the Rohingya genocide, Obama’s “aspirational” award — was in no mood to hand its most famous medal to a man who treats diplomacy as a branding exercise. Even before the envelope was opened, the whisper in Oslo was clear: Trump was radioactive.

A Decade-Long Obsession

That didn’t stop him from trying. Trump’s obsession with the Nobel borders on the pathological. He has spent years mentioning it at rallies, dropping hints in speeches, and lobbying allies to nominate him. He even went so far as to pressure foreign leaders — as Japan’s

Shinzo Abe

admitted when he revealed that Tokyo nominated Trump “at America’s request.”

Benjamin Netanyahu

handed him a nomination letter citing the Abraham Accords. Trump boasted to the UN that he had “ended seven wars,” and repeatedly reminded audiences that “everyone” says he should get the prize.

He even hinted that Norway, the host country, might face tariffs if Oslo continued to ignore him.And he doesn’t just hint at it — he says it outright. “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me,” he told reporters. On Truth Social, he lamented: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do … but the people know, and that’s all that matters.” At another rally, he complained, “I should get the prize … if they gave it out fairly — which they don’t.

They gave one to Obama.

” These repeated public declarations aren’t just vanity — they are self-sabotage. The Nobel Committee dislikes lobbying, and Trump has effectively turned his candidacy into a campaign.

Haunted by Obama’s Shadow

This relentless quest is about more than ego. It is rooted in Trump’s deepest political fixation: Barack Obama. When Obama won the Nobel in 2009 just eight months into his presidency, Trump was furious. Here was a man he considered an empty suit, showered with global adulation for symbolism rather than substance.

It was, to Trump, the ultimate insult — the Chosen One of the liberal establishment elevated to sainthood while the self-styled dealmaker was left outside the temple.From that moment, the Nobel became more than a trophy. It became a proxy war for legitimacy. If Obama was canonised merely for existing, then Trump would be immortalised for “doing.” Every foreign policy move — from North Korea summits to Middle East deals — was driven by that hunger to eclipse Obama’s legacy.

But history is unkind to desperation. Trump’s rhetoric is soaked in comparison, his policies often feel like attempts to erase Obama’s achievements, and by seeking the Nobel so desperately, he has almost guaranteed he will never get it.

A Venezuelan Twist of the Knife

The rejection this year was especially humiliating because of who did win. The Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who has spent decades fighting for democracy under Nicolás Maduro’s repressive regime.

The symbolism was brutal. Here was a woman who embodies everything Trump disdains: grassroots activism, multilateral applause, and the patient, thankless work of building civic resistance.

Machado, banned from elections, threatened with arrest, and forced into hiding, kept organising and demanding free elections — and the world rewarded her for it.Trump, who admires strongmen and mocks dissidents, had to watch a Latin American opposition leader receive the very honour he covets.

Machado represents the triumph of principle over theatrics. She fought without armies or gold-plated hotels, without turning herself into a personality cult. Trump, meanwhile, treated peace as a brand, not a process. He spent years undermining the very institutions that make peace possible while insisting he was the “greatest peacemaker” in history.

The Nobel’s choice was a direct rebuke: peace is not a performance — it is a practice.

Spin, Rage, and the “What Now?”

Predictably, the Trump White House reacted with fury and denial. Official statements dismissed the Nobel as “political,” accusing the committee of bias and elitism. Spokespeople insisted Trump was focused on “results, not recognition.” MAGA media fumed about “globalist conspiracies.” Trump himself posted angry rants about Obama’s “friends in Norway” and how the process was “rigged.” Even the petty gestures were on brand — aides sneering they’d never heard of Machado, forums calling for boycotts of Norwegian salmon, supporters mocking the Nobel as irrelevant.But the story doesn’t end with the snub. Trump’s next moves are predictable. He will double down on symbolic peace theatrics — ceasefires, summits, hostage swaps — strategically timed around Nobel deadlines. He will frame rejection as proof the “global elite” fears him. He will seek alternative awards, amplify praise from foreign leaders, and use the snub as leverage in negotiations: “I did all this, and they still wouldn’t give it to me.

” And if all else fails, he will create a parallel narrative in which his own supporters crown him the rightful laureate.

The World Awaits Blowback

The rest of the world is bracing for the consequences. Trump has already hinted that it would be “a big insult to our country” if his peace efforts were ignored. Allies fear that missing out on the Nobel will harden his instinct for unilateralism. European diplomats worry he could pull back from joint efforts in Ukraine, framing global cooperation as another arena where America is “disrespected.”

Others point to his planned visits to Egypt and Israel to celebrate a Gaza ceasefire — without the lure of a Nobel, they fear, he might lose interest just as the delicate implementation begins.

And with U.S. forces massed in the Caribbean as part of a pressure campaign against Maduro, there is little reason to believe a missing medal will temper his appetite for confrontation. Even in Norway, officials are gaming out scenarios in which he lashes out economically, perhaps with tariffs or punitive measures aimed at the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

A Legacy of Paradox

And yet, beneath the bluster, there is a deeper truth: Trump’s record on peace is complicated. The Abraham Accords were genuine diplomatic achievements, normalising relations between Israel and several Arab states. The Doha Agreement with the Taliban, though flawed, did pave the way for America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. His administration helped broker an economic pact between Serbia and Kosovo and opened direct talks with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un — something no previous U.S.

president had done.But these exist alongside a litany of actions that did the opposite. His withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal reignited tensions. His dismantling of arms treaties eroded strategic stability. His rhetoric toward allies strained long-standing partnerships. His tariffs provoked trade wars, and his decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem inflamed one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

His fondness for autocrats emboldened authoritarians, and his nationalist swagger corroded the multilateral order that underpins global peace.

The Nobel Committee weighs the totality of a legacy, not isolated moments — and Trump’s legacy, when viewed in full, is one of division as much as diplomacy.

The Prize He’ll Never Have

Therein lies the fundamental paradox of Donald Trump and the Nobel Peace Prize. He wants the medal not just as recognition but as proof that the world sees him the way he sees himself.

He wants it to rewrite the story — to recast him not as a disruptor but as a saviour. But the Nobel is not a mirror for a man’s ego; it is a measure of his contribution to something larger than himself. And the uncomfortable truth is that Trump’s contribution to peace, while not nonexistent, is deeply compromised by his contribution to conflict.

He is a man who wants credit for putting out fires he helped start.Perhaps, in the quiet of the Oval Office, Trump will console himself with the thought that the prize is meaningless. Perhaps he will insist, as he always does, that he was robbed. But reality is indifferent to his narratives. The Nobel Peace Prize has passed him by once again, and it will almost certainly keep doing so. It is the one deal he cannot close, the one prize he cannot brand, the one story he cannot rewrite. And that, more than any medal or speech, is history’s final judgement on Donald J.

Trump.