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Trump’s unpeaceful Nobel obsession: ‘I deserve it’
For some foreign leaders, mentioning the prestigious award has become a sign of diplomatic goodwill
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A craving for international prestige, a decade-long Obama rivalry and perhaps a dash of provocation: a mercurial melange of factors is at play in Donald Trump’s obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize.
“It’s well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday, prompting reactions of disbelief and sarcasm from the Republican leader’s opponents.
Since his January 20 return to power, the US president “has brokered, on average, one peace deal or ceasefire per month”, Leavitt said, citing as examples his mediations between India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand, Egypt and Ethiopia; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Serbia and Kosovo, and others.
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His leading spokeswoman also mentioned Iran, where Trump ordered US strikes against the Islamic republic’s nuclear facilities, as evidence of decisions Leavitt claimed have contributed to world peace.
She made no mention of the conflict in Ukraine, which Trump pledged multiple times to end on “day one” of his term, or the war in Gaza, which rumbles on and for which the US supplies Israel with weapons.
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For some foreign leaders, mentioning the prestigious award has become a sign of diplomatic goodwill toward an American president who envisions himself as a peacemaker.
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