The only thing worse than handing Trump the Nobel Peace Prize? Not handing it to him

For a man who believes every accolade is his by right, the 47th President seeing the humanitarian accolade go to someone else will sting, says Sean O’Grady

We can all imagine the scene as Donald Trump emerges from the elegant President’s bedroom in the White House, having learned that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2025 has been awarded to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan political campaigner, recognising her “tireless work” for democracy in her benighted homeland. His golden barnet duly reconstructed, sipping his first rejuvenatory Diet Coke, the wrath of Trump will fall upon her and, indeed, the entire nation of Norway.

US president Donald Trump didn’t win the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize (AFP via Getty Images)

Awarding Trump the Nobel Prize now would obviously be premature – like giving a football team the FA Cup because they’d had the best first half, during which they’d injured half the opposing side. And the ref. Perhaps, indeed probably inevitably, Trump will get his prize next year, and he won’t be modest about it.

But we are well aware of how he feels about snubs - indeed, his aides have already let us know his displeasure. "The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace”, White House spokesman Steven Cheung said in a post on X on Friday morning after the nomination was announced.

Never noted for his equable temperament or generosity of spirit, Steve Witkoff will presumably be ordered to “tariff the hell out of Norway” for its cussed failure to recognise greatness when they see it in its human form.

It will be of little compensation to Trump that Machado shares his deep distaste for Venezuela’s intolerant and authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro. To be fair, Trump did warn the Venezuelan regime not to hurt Machado after she was arrested, and she’s publicly thanked Trump for his “firm and decisive action” against Maduro’s rule of terror. But giving her the peace prize that, in Trump’s view, is his and his alone? It has not sat well with the White House.

The problem is that much rests on Trump’s self-image as a peacemaker, including the energy he is willing to devote to causes he believes to be in his interest. The president’s genuine appetite to broker deals which have aided the peace process has to date been spurred by, in addition to economic benefits, his pursuit of this very specific legacy. During last year’s presidential campaign, Trump said that if his name were Obama, he would have received the Nobel Peace Prize “in 10 seconds”.

Doron Hadar, a former negotiator, told the Washington Post on Thursday that the “Friday morning deadline is shaping the timeline, the announcement of the Nobel Committee in Oslo.

“Everyone understands this timeline, and that’s why I believe that by [Thursday] evening, there will already be a declaration that the sides have reached agreements,” he said.

Moreover, world leaders from Keir Starmer to Mark Carney have discovered that the best way to elicit the president’s better instincts is to hold a mirror up that shows hisself as a garlanded hero, not as churlish or unworthy. One hopes that Trump is sensible enough to, as the White House insists, “continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives” without this year’s award but this president has been blown off course by perceived slights before. Perhaps he has changed,

Of course, Trump would win every prize going for simmering resentment, as we recently witnessed at the UN General Assembly, when he berated the organisation for turning down his bid to refurbish the place when Trump was still a voracious real estate developer decades ago. “The cheap 12 inch sq. marble tiles behind speaker at UN always bothered me,” he once Tweeted. “I will replace with beautiful large marble slabs if they ask me.” Well, they didn’t. And thus another grudge grew.

María Corina Machado is the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize (AP)

Even though he thinks none of them have ever achieved anything, Trump despises every living president, and his petty pursuit of public officials who he thinks have wronged him, notably James Comey and Obama at the moment, undermines the very constitution he’s pledged to preserve, protect and defend.

If a state governor or city mayor has the temerity to defy him, he’ll deny them federal funds. If the “radical left” Democrats persist in turning down his budget, he’ll close entire welfare programmes and wind up “Democrat” federal agencies. If a TV station pokes fun at him, he’ll take its licence to broadcast away and demand reparations.

Maybe, feeling brave, Marco Rubio or some other hapless official will try to explain to Trump that the nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize closed back in January, which was bad timing for him. So far from bringing peace like a messiah, at that point Trump was actually still encouraging Benjamin Netanyahu, another chap not famed for the quality of mercy, to do whatever he liked in Gaza – which turned out to be indiscriminate bombing, famine, using Palestinian kids for target practice, the lot. Trump was also at that point dreaming about the US annexing the territory and turning the impoverished hellscape into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, its two million inhabitants to be forcibly deported from their homes and scattered across the Middle East and Africa. Ethnic cleansing doesn’t normally endear a candidate to Den Norske Nobelkomité for its uniquely prized honour. Just as well Trump’s dropped the beach resort project now – but it did rather get in the way of a smooth path to a win.

If he does indeed set the Middle East on the path to an unimaginable peace, he deserves it. Still, it doesn’t fit well that the next name in the pantheon of Nobel Peace Laureates to join Nelson Mandela, Yitzhak Rabin, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa will be… Donald J Trump. Don’t expect him to be grateful.