As the first year of US President Donald Trump’s second term progressed, numerous controversies emerged that did not escape the world’s attention. From his proposal to slash funding for Nasa research to the current Nobel Prize episode, an overwhelming amount of news surfaced daily.
The latest development links his drive to acquire Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize, stating that he “no longer feels obligated to think purely of peace” because the Norwegian Nobel Committee did not award him the prize.
For over 300 years, Greenland has belonged to the Danish Kingdom, and global leaders have criticised Trump’s claim that the United States should acquire the territory, a vast, frozen island located in the Arctic.
In a message to Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Trump criticised the European country for not awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize, which he has long coveted.
"Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America," Trump said in the message.
The Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 peace prize to María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, who on the other hand gifted her medal to Trump when they met in Washington last week.
Machado received the award for her leadership of Venezuela's opposition movement amid a crackdown by President Nicolás Maduro, most notably during the widely criticised 2023 presidential election.
Since President Trump assumed office, he has been obsessed with the Nobel Peace Prize. He has mentioned it dozens of times publicly, be it in his speeches, interviews, or campaign rallies. He has even no hesitation in expressing his deep sense of unfairness regarding president Barack Obama receiving it in 2009.
Trump frequently claims to have ended eight wars, branding himself as "the president of peace" and thus worthy of the Nobel Prize. However, these assertions have been exaggerated. He also claims that the most recent conflict he resolved was the two-year hostilities between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.
The additional seven pairs include Israel and Iran, Pakistan and India, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, Thailand and Cambodia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Serbia and Kosovo.
However, what is significant about Machado's gesture towards Trump is that it comes despite her refusal to endorse her as Venezuela's new leader, even though her movement claimed victory in the widely contested 2024 elections. Interestingly, when Machado was first awarded the prize, she dedicated it to Trump and the people of Venezuela.
Machado later revealed that the gift was in recognition of what she described as his commitment to the freedom of the Venezuelan people. "I presented the President of the United States with the medal, the Nobel Peace Prize," Machado told reporters after leaving the White House.
But Machado’s “gifting” act kicked off a global debate not just over symbolism and politics, but over a basic legal question as to whether the Nobel Prize can be transferred at all.
The Nobel Foundation later reiterated that Nobel Prizes cannot be passed on — even symbolically — days after clarifying that a laureate cannot share the prize with others or transfer it once it has been announced.
The Foundation stated that the Peace Prize Machado presented to Trump cannot be assigned to anyone else. "No matter what happens to the medal, diploma, or prize money, the original laureate will always be noted in history as the one who received the prize."
But The New York Times, quoting analysts, said Trump’s “public jockeying for the prize reflects his focus on accolades, praise and acceptance — and a burning desire to best his predecessors.”
Samuel Kutty
The writer is a freelance journalist and author who worked in Oman and India
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