Never before has a Nobel peace prize – or indeed any prize, decoration or gold star – loomed so large over a US president and their foreign policy.
Since his return to the White House, Donald Trump’s campaign to influence the Peace Research Institute Oslo in Norway has been anything but subtle – but with just hours to go before the award is announced, it has gone into overdrive.
As news broke of a landmark peace agreement that could end the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, his allies took to the airwaves in a last-ditch effort to win him the award that he has openly coveted for years.
“Everybody has been talking about: ‘Will he get the Nobel peace prize?’” said Brian Mast, a Republican congressman of Florida, on Fox News Thursday morning. “Those … academics and elites sitting in Norway, that board of people that decide it, they need to give President Trump the Nobel peace prize.”
“I’m not certain that the board in Norway that looks at this believes in peace through strength … they believe in peace through pandering,” he said.
Soon, Eylon Levy, a former Israeli government spokesperson, went on camera and said: “You know there is very little that Israelis agree on but there’s one point of consensus this morning: President Donald Trump deserves that Nobel peace prize.”
And it was clear that Trump was watching. Minutes later, the US president went on Truth Social, his social media platform, to thank both men by name.
While Trump has played down his chances to win the prize, he has been active behind the scenes, phoning Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s finance minister, in Oslo this summer to tell him he wanted to discuss the “Nobel peace prize … and tariffs”. He regularly brings up the award; usually as he makes the tenuous claim to have ended six or seven wars since his return to the White House.
“If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel prize given to me in 10 seconds,” Trump said last year during the presidential race.
The obsession has become a running joke among foreign diplomats seeking to lobby their interests, including at a regular breakfast among European ambassadors where a common topic is how to keep Trump engaged in the support of Ukraine.
“Anytime he is talking about solving seven wars, he is really sending a message: give me the Nobel,” said one senior European diplomat based in Washington.
The Nobel peace prize was believed to be a key motivator in his recent efforts to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine, influencing a rare summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska that was seen as a major gamble if it was interpreted as appeasing the Kremlin.
Ultimately, Putin was unmoved and Trump appeared to lose interest in ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Once he figured out that was too hard, we’re back to Gaza,” the diplomat said.
Trump’s new push for a peace deal to end the war kicked into gear during last month’s UN general assembly, where he met with Arab leaders and then approved a 20-point peace plan that he announced during a White House summit with Benjamin Netanyahu in late September.
The timeline for the award has played an active role in trying to reach a deal this week, as officials have regularly said they believed a peace deal would be ready by Friday – the same day as the Nobel committee announces its choice.
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, according to the outlet.
In a delicious bit of irony, the Norwegian committee told Agence-France Presse that it had held its final meeting on Monday – two days before Trump announced the first phase of the peace deal on Truth Social.
But amid the naked ambition behind Trump’s push for peace in Gaza, even those who have been highly critical of the war have hailed the deal as a major achievement.
“This is definitely a morning for celebration,” wrote Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist and hostage negotiator. “The war is ending. The killing and destruction will stop.”
Later, he added: “In conclusion of these first thoughts: President Trump deserves the Nobel peace prize.”
