Reported by Ariajegbe Sylvia Esezobor
President Donald Trump has launched a scathing attack on the Norwegian Nobel Committee after the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to South African jurist Navanethem "Navi" Pillay, describing the decision as "disgraceful and embarrassing" and claiming the prize should have gone to him for what he says is his record of settling international conflicts.
Speaking at a rally in Syracuse, New York, on Friday, October 9, 2026, Trump said he had "never heard of" Pillay, a former United Nations human rights chief and International Criminal Court judge, before declaring that the United States, "represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn't." He added: "This is an indelible stain on the country of Norway, and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision." The president also said the prize had been "forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilisation," and warned: "We will not forget, Norway, that you didn't give this prize."
The 2026 prize was awarded to Pillay "for her efforts to promote peace and international law," which the Norwegian Nobel Committee said had paved the way for a "more comprehensive global legal order." The committee's chair, Jørgen Watne Frydnes, said Pillay's work had been "instrumental in ensuring that war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are prosecuted." The 85-year-old jurist, who served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014 and presided over the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, reacted to the news with characteristic humour from Nuremberg's Palace of Justice, saying "it must be a joke" before adding: "If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump."
The prize, which includes a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum of $1.2 million, is awarded by a five-member Norwegian committee that is independent of the Norwegian government. Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre explained this distinction to Trump in 2025 after the then-president expressed displeasure at missing out on the award. Trump has nonetheless persisted in attributing the decision to Norway as a country, a framing that legal scholars and diplomats have repeatedly rejected.
Trump's claim to the prize rests on his assertion that he has settled eight wars since returning to office in January 2025, a claim he repeated at the Syracuse rally before adding that he was "about to settle or win two more: Iran and Russia-Ukraine," which he said he would end "quickly." He offered no evidence for the claim, and his list has been scrutinised by fact-checkers who note that several of the conflicts he cites were not wars and that others remain unresolved. The president also said he stopped Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and "saved more lives than anyone in history," despite US intelligence assessments reported to Congress in 2025 indicating that Iran had suspended its pursuit of nuclear weapons in 2003.
The political and diplomatic context surrounding the award is complex. Trump's war with Iran, launched in February 2026, has been cited by Oslo-based experts as a central reason for his disqualification. His territorial ambitions regarding Greenland, his hardline immigration policies and his attacks on multilateral institutions and the media have also been identified as factors that diminished his standing in the eyes of the Nobel Committee. The war has driven up global energy prices and expanded into neighbouring countries, with Iran choking off the Strait of Hormuz and the US imposing a counterblockade of Iranian ports. Trump's framing of the conflict as a peace achievement rather than a war has been widely contested.
The prize itself has a history of being awarded to figures whose work contrasts sharply with Trump's approach to international relations. Last year's laureate, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, gifted her Nobel gold medal to Trump during a meeting at the White House in January 2026, a gesture Trump described as "a wonderful gesture of mutual respect." The Nobel Committee later clarified that the prize was not transferable, stating: "Once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time." Pillay's joke about sharing her prize appeared to reference that episode.
Trump's preoccupation with the Nobel Peace Prize is long-standing. He has spoken publicly about his desire to win the award, and his administration has actively lobbied for it. In 2025, his chances were reportedly boosted by his role in brokering a ceasefire in Gaza, which earned him praise from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a golden pager from the Israeli leader. However, the combination of the Iran war and other policy positions ultimately outweighed any diplomatic achievements in the committee's assessment. This year, even before Pillay was announced as the laureate, analysts in Oslo described Trump's "spectre" as haunting the proceedings, with experts noting that his war with Iran had essentially disqualified him.
The reaction to Pillay's award from other quarters has been more positive. The Nobel Committee's decision was praised by human rights organisations and international legal bodies who have worked alongside Pillay over her decades-long career. She is the latest in a long line of laureates honoured for their commitment to international justice, joining figures such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Kofi Annan. Her work in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and the Occupied Palestinian Territories has been central to the development of international criminal law, and her tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was marked by a willingness to confront powerful states over their human rights records.
For Trump, the 2026 award represents a personal and political rebuke. His supporters at the Syracuse rally cheered his complaints, but the broader international community has largely dismissed his framing. The Nobel Committee has not responded to his remarks, consistent with its practice of not commenting on laureates' political statements. The prize will be formally presented in Oslo in December, and Pillay is expected to deliver a lecture outlining her vision for international justice. For Nigerians and others following the award, the episode offers a reminder that the Nobel Peace Prize, however contested its decisions may sometimes be, remains a symbol of the international community's aspiration for a world governed by law rather than force. Trump's assertion that he should have won eight prizes, one for each war he claims to have settled, has been met with widespread scepticism, but it has also underscored the extent to which the prize's prestige continues to shape political discourse across the globe.
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