Norway braces for Trump's reaction if he does not win Nobel peace prize

[Celerity]

US president may impose tariffs, demand higher Nato contributions or even declare Norway an enemy, analyst says

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/09/norway-braces-for-trumps-reaction-if-he-does-not-win-nobel-peace-prize



With hours to go until the announcement of this year’s Nobel peace prize, Norwegian politicians were steeling themselves for potential repercussions to US-Norway relations if it is not awarded to Donald Trump. The Norwegian Nobel Committee pointedly said on Thursday that it had reached a decision about who would be named 2025 peace prize laureate on Monday, several days before Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire under the US president’s Gaza plan.

Taking into account the timeframe and the composition of the independent five-person committee, most Nobel experts and Norwegian observers believe it is highly unlikely that Trump will be awarded the prize, leading to fears in the country over how he will react to being overlooked so publicly. Kirsti Bergstø, the leader of Norway’s Socialist Left party and its foreign policy spokesperson, said Oslo must be “prepared for anything.”

“Donald Trump is taking the US in an extreme direction, attacking freedom of speech, having masked secret police kidnapping people in broad daylight and cracking down on institutions and the courts. When the president is this volatile and authoritarian, of course we have to be prepared for anything,” Bergstø told the Guardian. “The Nobel Committee is an independent body and the Norwegian government has no involvement in determining the prizes. But I’m not sure Trump knows that. We have to be prepared for anything from him.”

Trump has long been outspoken about his belief that he should be awarded the peace prize, an honour previously bestowed on one of his presidential predecessors, Barack Obama, in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. In July, Trump reportedly called Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s finance minister and the former Nato secretary general, to ask about the Nobel prize. At the UN last month, Trump falsely claimed that he had halted seven “unendable wars”, telling world leaders: “Everyone says I should get the Nobel peace prize.”

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