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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Arild Hermstad, the leader of the Green party of Norway, said the Nobel committee’s independence is what gives the prize its credibility.
“Peace prizes are earned through sustained commitment, not through social media tantrums and not from intimidation,” he said. “It’s good that Trump supported the recent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Any step toward ending the suffering in Gaza is welcome. But one late contribution does not erase years of enabling violence and division.”
Kristian Berg Harpviken, the director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said the decision was finalised at the most recent meeting of the Nobel committee on Monday.
Harpviken said decisions were apolitical, although the appointing of committee members by the Norwegian parliament in accordance with the will of Alfred Nobel, who bequeathed the money to fund the prizes that bear his name, may complicate that impression.
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“I know first-hand the committee acts completely independently. But Alfred Nobel made it somewhat difficult for us by writing in his will that it must be appointed by the parliament. That, unfortunately, is non-negotiable,” he said.
The newspaper columnist and analyst Harald Stanghelle speculated that retribution from Trump – if it were to come – could take the form of tariffs, demands for higher Nato contributions or even declaring Norway an enemy.
“He [Trump] is so unpredictable. I don’t want to use the word ‘fear’ but there is a feeling that it could be a challenging situation,” he said. “It’s very very difficult to explain to Donald Trump or to many other countries in the world that it is a totally independent committee because they do not respect this kind of independence.”
He said if Trump were to win, it would be the “biggest surprise in the history of the Nobel peace prize”.
Nina Græger, the director of the Peace Research Institute Osl, believes the most likely candidates to win this year’s peace prize include Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
“While he [Trump] clearly deserves credit for his efforts to end the war in Gaza, it is still too early to tell whether the peace proposal will be implemented and lead to lasting peace,” Græger said.
“Trump’s retreat from international institutions, and his wish to take over Greenland from The Kingdom of Denmark, a Nato ally, as well as infringements on basic democratic rights within his own country, do not align well with Nobel’s will.”