Experts: Trump will not win the Nobel Peace Prize, but his influence will be felt

U.S. President Donald Trump will not win this year’s Nobel Peace Prize while he wages war with Iran, experts say, but his influence will be felt on the body that chooses the winner, as Reuters reports.

Last year’s prize, which went to Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado, was unique in the prize’s 125-year history — it came amid Trump’s repeated lobbying to receive it. Weeks later, Machado gave Trump her gold Nobel medal, in an effort to win support for her cause of a democratic Venezuela.

This year, the five-member body will be careful to choose someone who can withstand pressure from Trump, says Haakon Gjerloew, acting director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo.

“I think last year’s events around the Nobel Peace Prize, the fact that Maria Corina Machado subsequently gave hers to Trump, will influence some of the considerations they make,” he told Reuters.

“One concern the committee may have is whether giving the prize to someone could put them under pressure from Donald Trump… I think the committee will take into account whether the prize does more harm than good.”

That could mean a prize for Pope Leo, the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice or Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, experts say. The announcement is made on October 9.

Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, has said he will continue speaking out against war, after the president called him “weak” for his criticism of the U.S. conflict with Iran. The Pope’s encyclical on artificial intelligence, his advocacy for dialogue and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, his calls for respect for migrants and his humanitarian work could justify the prize.

“The Pope represents more than just a religious figure. He has emerged as a leading thought leader,” Karim Haggag, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told Reuters.

Italy’s Albanese, meanwhile, has been attacked by the U.S. and Israel for her criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war against Hamas in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank.

But last year’s shocking events may also have the opposite effect on the committee: to go for a safe, uncontroversial choice that is less likely to provoke Trump — who blamed Norway, where the prize is decided, for not giving it to him last year.

That could mean recognizing Sudan’s Emergency Response Rooms, a Sudanese network of community groups providing aid during the civil war, or the non-governmental group Save the Children for its aid to children in conflicts.

But the committee is also under scrutiny to respond to Trump’s challenges to the international order it values, said Oeivind Stenersen, a historian who has written about the Nobel Peace Prize.

“They have a certain pressure… to be tough against Trump,” he told Reuters. “In this serious international situation, this year calls for a peace prize in defence of liberal democracy, international law and human rights.”

That could mean honoring the ICC at a time when Washington is preparing sweeping sanctions against the global court, according to sources, while a prize for the ICJ would support respect for states’ sovereignty and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Trump is reported to have been nominated by the leaders of Cambodia, Israel and Pakistan, but his chances were “quite low”, according to Gjerloew.

Trump’s pressure on the Norwegian Nobel Committee has shocked many, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa, a Filipino-American journalist, who said she watched last year with “horror”. “Bullies do not run the world,” she told Reuters during a visit to Oslo in September. “There are standards we live by. Power does not mean right.”