Trump presses Nobel Peace Prize case: ‘The pressure's on'
Friday may be Trump's biggest diplomatic test yet when he sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk about ending the war in Ukraine, something the president has struggled to settle between the two adversaries.
But Trump has succeeded in other long-standing conflicts. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, who have been at war over territory shared by their two countries for decades, floated a joint nomination for Trump when they visited the White House recently for a U.S.-brokered peace summit.
The White House is publicly arguing it is 'well past time' Trump gets the prize. A source close to Trump World said the White House is 'very serious' about getting Trump the prize, adding that 'on the merits, it's pretty straightforward.'
The list of those who agree has been growing.
Pakistan nominated Trump for the prize for his mediation of a ceasefire between the country and India in May. After he ended another conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, the former said this month it would nominate Trump for the prize.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) in March said he would nominate Trump for the award, and Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) nominated him in June, citing his role in brokering a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel.
The award is given annually in December by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to someone who has worked to establish peace between nations.
A former aide in Trump's first term said senior State Department officials have the Nobel Peace Prize in the back of their heads at all times, an idea that shapes how they think about the big picture.
'There's no question the pressure's on,' the former aide said. 'Trump sees this prize as the ultimate capstone to how history will remember him.'
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet lauded Trump's 'historic contributions to advancing world peace' in an announcement this week on the Nobel nomination. Similarly, Pakistan praised Trump for 'pragmatic diplomacy and effective peace-building' when it nominated him. India has denied that Trump played a role in its military decisions.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro in July said Trump deserves a Nobel Prize specifically for restructuring the international trade environment with his aggressive tariff plan.
And the president himself said he deserved the prize after a deal was announced in June to end the conflict between Rwanda and Congo.
'I'm not politicking for it. I have a lot of people that are,' Trump said Friday about the award.
However, peace in two of the world's major wars — between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Hamas — has proven elusive for Trump, who set high expectations for his negotiating acumen.
Trump has increasingly grown frustrated that he can't end the fighting in Ukraine after promising on the campaign trail to achieve peace 'on Day 1.' He has pulled various levers, like imposing new sanctions on Russia and sanctions on India for buying Russian oil.
The White House has tempered expectations for the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska on Friday, at times calling it a 'listening session.' Trump has said this week that he would know in a matter of minutes whether Putin was serious about a peace deal. The White House has also largely avoided predicting any deliverables.
When it comes to Israel, Trump showed rare daylight with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during recent remarks in which he acknowledged the starvation in Gaza, vowing to increase aid.
Netanyahu in July, on a visit to the White House, presented Trump with a letter he sent to the Nobel Prize committee.
'It's nominating you for the peace prize, which is well-deserved. And you should get it,' Netanyahu said.
The two leaders have not always seen eye to eye in public over the war in Gaza, which, like in Ukraine, has no end in site, with several ceasefire proposals falling apart this year.
Bill O'Reilly recently told NewsNation that Trump feels the Ukraine-Russia war is the key to his prize.
'I know exactly what Trump is aiming for. He would like to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,' O'Reilly said on NewsNation's ' On Balance.'
'That may or may not happen. That's not the most honest organization over in Norway, but he wants to get this thing settled.'
Other conservatives also questioned whether the effort is worth it.
'Trump is obsessed with the Nobel Prize. He shouldn't be. He talks about a new type of leadership so why does he need an affirmation by a bunch of Norwegian progressives? He needs to decide whether he wants to Make America Great Again, or if he wants to be Jimmy Carter v. 2.0,' Michael Rubin, senior fellow with the conservative Washington think tank the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill.
Former President Carter was awarded the prize after his presidency, in 2002, for his work to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts. Former President Obama received the award in the first year of his presidency, in 2009, for his work to strengthen international diplomacy.
Only two other presidents have won it — former President Wilson in 1920 and former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Former Vice President Al Gore won it in 2007 for his work on combating climate change.
'Trump seems much more ideologically flexible than I think a lot of Republicans in D.C. would like him to be. And it's drive in pursuit of ego and the idea that he clearly wants to go down in history as some kind of celebrated dealmaker,' one former national security aide to former President Biden said.
The former aide added, 'He promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war famously in 24 hours, failure. He inherited a ceasefire in Gaza, failure. That's fallen apart. … He said he would try to get a nuclear deal with Iran, failure.'
Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, argued in an op-ed this week that Trump deserves the prize for Operation Warp Speed, which got the COVID-19 vaccine off the ground at the end of his first term.
On the foreign policy front, Trump has sought to bring an end to both erupting conflicts and long-simmering disputes.
The White House on Friday touted the Armenia and Azerbaijan peace deal to end a decades-long conflict in the South Caucasus.
At that event, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan argued Trump would be worthy of the Nobel Prize for his efforts.
'I think President Trump deserves to have the Nobel Peace Prize. … We will promote for that,' Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.
'President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize many times over — his direct involvement in major conflicts, leveraging tools from America's military might to our superior consumer market, has brought peace to decades-long wars around the world,' spokesperson Anna Kelly said, adding the 'success is exemplified' by the Azerbaijan-Armenia peace summit.
'The President's legacy is already cemented as Peacemaker-in-Chief, and he has received multiple nominations because America is respected again with him in office,' she said.
The former Biden national security aide argued that the previous administration had done the vast majority of the groundwork in many diplomatic deals, adding that Trump 'parachuted in' to close them.
'I think he's interested in any deal he can slap his name on and say 'look what I got done,'' the former aide said.
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