How to make the most of Trump's quest for Nobel gold

As the 2026 season opens, the US President is back in the race.

- Jonathan Eyal Global Affairs Correspondent

Wherever he went in the Middle East this week, US President Donald Trump was showered with praise for leading efforts to stop the Gaza war.

Yet in all the compliments heaped upon him, one refrain remained constant: Mr Trump apparently deserves to win the Nobel Peace Prize. The Speaker of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, went even further: he vowed to mobilise his peers in other friendly legislatures on a joint petition begging the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to bestow next year's medal on the US President.

No leader has ever pursued the prize so openly and so assiduously as Mr Trump. The US President's chase for the Nobel gold medal remains the butt of countless jokes. And it’s an open secret that many of those who say that Mr Trump should get the prize do so not necessarily because they believe this to be true, but more because they wish to please the US leader.

Still, Mr Trump’s all-consuming quest tells us a great deal about the advantages and pitfalls inherent in any effort to reward good behaviour on the international stage.

While the objectives which persuaded Alfred Nobel to devote his fortune to the establishment of annual prizes for chemistry, physics, physiology, medicine, and literature are well known, his purpose in endowing an award for peace remains obscure.

Perhaps the Swedish chemist and businessman felt guilty for inventing, among others, dynamite, an explosive used ever since for military purposes. Or possibly, as another story suggests, he was inspired by his friendship and allegedly romantic association with an Austrian noblewoman who wrote about the ideal of peace.

Be that as it may, the mission of the Prize remains nebulous: it is to be given to those who have “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses”.