US President Donald Trump has criticised Norway over the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize decision, calling it a “disgraceful and embarrassing” choice that left an “indelible stain” on the country.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Syracuse, New York, on Friday night, hours after South African jurist Navi Pillay was named laureate, Trump said the prize should have gone to him.
“The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t,” he told supporters.
Trump dismissed Pillay, 85, as a “mystery person,” saying, “I never heard of the person. Nobody did.”
“This is an indelible stain on the country of Norway and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” he said.
He argued that the Nobel Peace Prize has been “forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are anti-democracy and really enemies of civilization,” adding, “We will not forget, Norway.”
Trump listed several conflicts he claimed to have helped prevent, including tensions between North and South Korea, Japan and North Korea, and China and Taiwan, without providing evidence.
Pillay was awarded the prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law. The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised her decades of work holding leaders accountable for war crimes and genocide.
Pillay later joked to an applauding crowd, “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump,” in an apparent reference to 2025 winner Maria Corina Machado, who gave her Nobel medal to Trump earlier this year.
Leave a comment