Trump is not worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize – not now, not ever

It was never going to be President Donald Trump’s year to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It never should be.

Maria Corina Machado of Venezuela won the Nobel for promoting democracy. The Norwegian Nobel Committee hailed Machado, opposition leader to her country’s dictatorship, for “her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy”.

Machado won the award for her work in bringing democracy to her country on the day when Trump used his Department of Justice to undercut democracy in his country. Trump exacted retribution against another of his political enemies, New York state attorney-general Letitia James, who launched the lawsuit that led to Trump’s conviction for business fraud. Trump wants the department to prosecute and jail her and James Comey, former director of the FBI, and several others for their disloyalty to him.

Machado and Trump are both focused on pressuring the same dictator, Nicolas Maduro, but in profoundly different ways. While Machado spurs a political campaign to bring democracy to her fellow citizens, Trump gives explicit approval for extra-judicial execution of alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers on their boats in the Caribbean.

Machado’s Nobel award seized headlines around the world. Trump’s targeted prosecution of the New York attorney-general, his renewed trade war with China and the wholesale firing of government workers eclipsed US headlines of his success in Gaza.

If Trump, for all his shameless begging and preening, was in the peace prize game this year, it was never a close call. It’s bad staff work if Trump did not know that the Nobel committee had decided on this year’s recipient before Israel and Hamas accepted a ceasefire under his Gaza peace plan.

Ahead of the Nobel announcement, Trump welcomed Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, who has become a crucial channel between Europe and the US president on global issues such as Ukraine and trade. In the gilded Oval Office, where a Nobel Prize would surely be placed with the gold molding on the fireplace mantel, Trump was pressed by the media on Friday about whether he might yet get the prize.

Stubb had some excellent guidance for Trump. He said there were two key pieces to be solved: the Middle East and Ukraine. Once those two wars are truly done, Stubb said, “I see no impediment” to Trump winning the prize.

He also highlighted the Nobel Peace Prize that a former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, received in 2008. He was cited “for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts,” which included wars in Kosovo and Aceh province in Indonesia.

Seven world leaders – Israel the most prominent – had endorsed a Trump Nobel. Stubb very wisely counselled that Trump needed more – that “the best” nominations for his prize would be those from the King of Jordan and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.

Then Trump drew a contrast with president Barack Obama, who was awarded the prize in 2009 “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. Trump dissed the work of the committee: “He got elected and they gave it Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country. Not a good presidency.”

Trump added: “Nobody in history has solved eight wars in a period of nine months.” But has he?

Several reviews have concluded that Trump indeed played a strong hand for peace with Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, the ceasefires between Iran and Israel and between Cambodia and Thailand. Several of these conflicts, however, remain unresolved. And India’s Prime Minster, Narendra Modi, emphatically rejects that Trump was instrumental in the ceasefire with Pakistan.

If Trump ultimately becomes a Nobel laureate, he would surely be forced to share the honour with other peacemakers. Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin shared the 1978 Nobel for the peace agreement between their counties. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israel’s Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres shared the 1994 Nobel “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East”. Trump would almost certainly have to share the honour with some of the leaders of Israel, Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Trump’s Gaza peace is a truly major achievement. But it is not done. There is much harder work ahead on the disarmament of Hamas, further Israel withdrawal, establishing a new governance structure for Gaza and ultimately efforts towards a Palestinian state.

Above and beyond diplomacy, the powerful underlying theme behind the Nobel Peace Prize is humanitarianism. Hence laureates Mother Teresa, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the World Food Program and Pakistani female education activist Malala Yousafzai.

But Trump has viciously attacked and ended US support for the underlying values that help secure global peace, security and prosperity. He has unilaterally cancelled billions of dollars in foreign aid. This includes terminating the USAID programs that delivered crucial health care and crisis relief.

Trump has now withdrawn the US from UNESCO, the World Health Organisation, the Paris climate accords, the UN Human Rights Commission and others. The US is reducing its ties with the World Trade Organisation.

This decimation of America’s “soft power” across the globe can only foster conditions that will lead to more war, suffering, poverty, illness, starvation and climate catastrophe. Medical studies project that millions of people will die as a result in the coming years.

For a prize that honours nobility of purpose and selfless service to sustain and strengthen humanity worldwide, Trump is unfit to receive it. Not now. Not ever.

Trump does not have to wonder any more about the Nobel Peace Prize, the mysteries of the selection process and how best to game it. He and Alfred Nobel are done.

Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.