Why Donald Trump is desperate to win Nobel Peace Prize

United States President Donald Trump has made no bones about coveting a Nobel Peace Prize. He brought up the award again while reiterating his claim of ending hostilities between India and Pakistan — an assertion rejected by New Delhi.

Trump has mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize dozens of times publicly, be it in his speeches, interviews or campaign rallies. After failing to get the award in his first term, his obsession with the prestigious award has returned.

But why does Trump desire the Nobel Peace Prize so strongly? We will take a look.

Trump says ‘won’t get Nobel Peace Prize’

US President Donald Trump reiterated his claims of brokering a peace deal between India and Pakistan, griping he would not get a Nobel Peace Prize for “stopping” the “war” between the two South Asian neighbours.

In a long post on his Truth Social platform on Friday (June 20), the Republican leader mentioned the prestigious award six times. He listed a variety of reasons why he should get the award.

The Republican leader complained he would not get the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the Russia-Ukraine or Israel-Iran conflicts. “I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize, no matter what I do,” Trump said in his post.

The US President began the post saying he was “very happy” to report that he, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has arranged a “wonderful treaty between Congo and Rwanda, in their war, which was known for violent bloodshed and death, more so even than most other Wars, and has gone on for decades.”

He went on to say that representatives from Rwanda and Congo will be in Washington on Monday to sign documents, adding that this was a “Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World!”

Trump said he “won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the War between India and Pakistan, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the War between Serbia and Kosovo, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for keeping Peace between Egypt and Ethiopia.”

The US president has claimed multiple times that he halted the “war between India and Pakistan” . New Delhi has, however, maintained that an understanding to cease fire with Pakistan was reached after direct talks between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of the two militaries.

Trump then said that he “won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for doing the Abraham Accords” in West Asia, which, “if all goes well, will be loaded to the brim with additional countries signing on, and will “unify” West Asia “for the first time in “The Ages!””

The Abraham Accords, signed during Trump’s first term at the White House, are landmark agreements to establish ties between Israel and four Arab countries.

Trump ended his post with: “No, I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do, including Russia/Ukraine, and Israel/Iran, whatever those outcomes may be, but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!”

Trump’s obsession with Nobel Peace Prize

This is not the first time that Trump has lamented not winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

He has spoken about it several times, and as per New York Times (NYT), complained “publicly and privately” about not getting it for nearly a decade.

As Trump pushes for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and a peace deal in West Asia, the “award is looming large in his mind”, the American newspaper reported, citing current and former advisers.

At an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February, the US president said: “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize.”

“It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me,” he added.

Trump has been nominated many times for the Nobel Peace Prize. A wide variety of people can nominate someone for the honour. Last year, Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New York, nominated him for brokering the Abraham Accords.

Norwegian politician Christian Tybring-Gjedde and a Swedish political figure, Magnus Jacobsson, nominated Trump during his first term. But the esteemed prize evaded the US president.

Trump has been nominated once again. In February, Anat Alon-Beck, an Israeli-born professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, submitted a letter to the Nobel committee, arguing that Trump should get the award for his early work on securing a peace deal in West Asia.

“By securing the release of hostages, standing firm against antisemitism, and fostering historic agreements that bring stability to the world’s most volatile regions, [Trump] has once again demonstrated why he is a deserving recipient,” Alon-Beck wrote, as per Axios.

The Trump administration officials have also rallied behind the US president in his quest for the prestigious prize, which is decided by the Nobel Committee – appointed by Norway’s parliament.

“The Nobel Peace Prize is illegitimate if President Trump — the ultimate peace president — is denied his rightful recognition of bringing harmony across the world,” Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, said in a statement earlier.

Speaking to Fox News in February, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Trump deserves a Nobel for his efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war. “If it were fairly awarded, I think in a year, he should get it from what I’ve seen,” he said.

US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and New York Representative Elise Stefanik have also advocated for Trump winning the Nobel.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has nominated Trump for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize “in recognition of his decisive diplomatic intervention and pivotal leadership during the recent India-Pakistan crisis”.

“At a moment of heightened regional turbulence, President Trump demonstrated great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship through robust diplomatic engagement with both Islamabad and New Delhi which de-escalated a rapidly deteriorating situation, ultimately securing a ceasefire and averting a broader conflict between the two nuclear states that would have had catastrophic consequences for millions of people in the region and beyond”, a statement by Pakistan on Saturday (June 21) claimed.

The announcement came just days after the US president hosted Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir at the White House for lunch. Islamabad has parroted Trump’s claim that he “helped settle” the hostilities between the neighbours.

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Why is Trump pushing for the Nobel Peace Prize?

Trump’s obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize may have to do with former US President Barack Obama, who had won the award less than nine months after taking office in 2009.

Obama, who was a highly controversial choice, got the prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.

Trump has criticised the Nobel committee for picking Obama for the award. In 2019, the Republican leader said he should get the prize “for a lot of things, if they gave it out fairly — which they don’t. They gave one to Obama immediately upon his ascent to the presidency, and he had no idea why he got it. … That was the only thing I agreed with him on.”

Towards the end of his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly brought up Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, ranting that he did not deserve the award.

“If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,” he said.

John Bolton, who was ousted by Trump as his national security adviser in 2019, told NYT, “The centre of his public life is the greater glory of Donald Trump, and the Nobel Peace Prize would be a nice thing to hang on the wall.”

“He saw that Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize and felt if Obama got it for not doing anything, why should he not get it?” he said of the US president.

While Trump longs for the validation of the Nobel Peace Prize, critics say he does not deserve it, as there is no guarantee he will achieve a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine or in West Asia. They also accuse the US president of aligning himself with aggressors.

With inputs from agencies