Can Donald Trump’s Gaza plan win him the Nobel Peace Prize?

The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize announcement is scheduled for Friday, and much of the attention this year revolves around one name: Donald J Trump.

The US President, who has long expressed his desire to win the world’s most coveted peace award, has renewed his push for the honour — this time linking it to his proposed plan to end the nearly two-year Gaza war between Israel and Hamas.

Trump, who often portrays himself as a dealmaker and global negotiator, believes his diplomatic initiatives — particularly the Abraham Accords of 2020 and his recent Gaza peace roadmap — qualify him for the prize.

Yet, while his campaign for recognition has been unusually public and aggressive, experts on international diplomacy and the Nobel process say his chances remain slim.

Trump’s pursuit of the Nobel

Donald Trump’s fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize is not new.

Since his first term in the White House, he has publicly argued that his foreign policy achievements merited the same distinction awarded to several of his predecessors.

“Everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize,” Trump told a gathering of diplomats at the United Nations last month, repeating a claim he has made for years.

Trump has frequently reminded audiences that he “deserves the prize,” boasting that he has “ended seven wars” and hinting that a breakthrough in Gaza could mark his “eighth.”

Addressing a group of military officials at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia, he declared, “Nobody’s ever done that. Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing.”

These remarks reflect both Trump’s confidence and his frustration with the Nobel Committee, which he has accused of ignoring his accomplishments.

His pursuit of the award has, at times, resembled an international lobbying effort — one that includes endorsements, formal nominations, and behind-the-scenes diplomatic outreach to Norway, the country responsible for selecting the laureate.

Trump’s Gaza peace initiative

The centrepiece of Trump’s latest bid for the Nobel is his Gaza peace plan, a proposal he recently unveiled as the war between Israel and Hamas enters its third year on Tuesday.

The initiative outlines a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops, the release of hostages, and the reconstruction of Gaza under international supervision.

According to details revealed in recent briefings, Trump’s plan envisions a multi-stage process: first, Hamas would free the hostages it holds, followed by a partial Israeli pullout; in return, Palestinian groups would agree to disarm and accept external monitoring of reconstruction aid.

Trump has suggested that Israel has already signalled acceptance of the “initial withdrawal line.”

The proposal, in theory, could lead to a lasting ceasefire. However, reality on the ground tells a more complicated story.

Despite Trump’s public appeals for calm, Israeli airstrikes continued in Gaza after his announcement, killing 66 people. While Hamas has indicated openness to a temporary truce, it has not yet agreed to full disarmament, one of the key conditions of Trump’s plan.

For now, the region remains tense, with Israeli forces still operating inside Gaza City and maintaining control over large areas of the West Bank.

Analysts have called Trump’s proposal “ambitious but uncertain,” pointing out that it faces numerous political and logistical challenges before it can produce tangible peace.

How Nobel nominations work

Every year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a five-member panel appointed by Norway’s parliament, selects the Peace Prize laureate.

The process is secretive: while hundreds of individuals and organisations submit nominations, the committee’s deliberations remain sealed for 50 years.

Thousands of people worldwide — including heads of state, parliamentarians, university professors, and past Nobel laureates — are eligible to nominate candidates.

In 2025, there are reportedly 338 nominees, though only a few names have become public.

Trump’s name has appeared among nominees several times since 2018, and his supporters have continued to put him forward.

US Representative Claudia Tenney, a Republican from New York, officially nominated him again this year, citing his leadership in establishing the Abraham Accords, which normalised diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco in 2020.

That nomination was submitted before the February 1 deadline, making it valid for consideration this year.

Other nominations — including those from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pakistan’s government, and leaders in Cambodia — arrived after the deadline, meaning they will not be reviewed for the 2025 award.

The Pakistani and Cambodian nominations credited Trump with mediating military tensions between their countries and their neighbours, India and Thailand, respectively.

Not all of Trump’s nominations have lasted. A Ukrainian lawmaker who had initially nominated him withdrew the submission after Trump failed to condemn a Russian missile strike on Kyiv.

The behind-the-scenes campaign

Trump’s allies have also been actively campaigning for his Nobel candidacy. According to reports from Bloomberg, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, urged the Norwegian committee to “come to its senses” and recognise Trump’s achievements.

Witkoff reportedly warned that denying Trump the prize would be “a major insult to America.”

The campaign has extended beyond diplomacy. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been in contact with European officials to rally support for Trump’s candidacy, while Trump himself is said to have personally spoken with Norway’s finance minister Jens Stoltenberg to discuss the award.

Corporate leaders have also joined the chorus. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla praised Trump’s role in launching Operation Warp Speed during the Covid-19 pandemic, calling it an initiative that “accelerated vaccine development” and “improved the ability to diagnose the virus.”

Bourla suggested that such an effort was “typically worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.”

However, many observers believe that overt lobbying could undermine his chances, as the Nobel Committee traditionally resists external pressure and determines independence from political influence.

Why experts say Trump’s chances are slim

Despite the visibility of his campaign, experts on international diplomacy and Nobel history say Trump’s path to the prize is far from certain.

The committee typically favours sustained efforts that promote long-term stability and international cooperation, rather than short-term agreements or unilateral declarations.

“There’s a huge difference between getting fighting to stop in the short-term and resolving the root causes of the conflict,” said Theo Zenou, historian and research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.

He noted that Trump’s confrontational tone and scepticism toward global institutions contrast with the qualities the Nobel Committee often rewards.

Zenou added that Trump’s dismissive stance on climate change — an issue widely regarded as a global peace concern — might further diminish his appeal to the committee.

“I don’t think they would award the most prestigious prize in the world to someone who does not believe in climate change,” he told AP.

“When you look at previous winners who have been bridge-builders, embodied international cooperation and reconciliation: These are not words we associate with Donald Trump.”

Nina Græger, director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said that Trump’s public campaign could backfire. “The committee won’t want to appear to be caving in to political pressure,” she explained.

“Trump’s prospects for the prize this year are a long shot. His rhetoric does not point in a peaceful perspective.”

The Nobel’s past controversies

The Nobel Peace Prize has not been without its share of disputes. The most notable example came in 2009, when the committee awarded the prize to then-US President Barack Obama only nine months into his first term.

Critics argued that Obama had not yet made any concrete achievements in peacebuilding.

In his memoir, former committee secretary Geir Lundestad admitted that the decision was partly aspirational — intended to encourage Obama’s diplomatic agenda — but conceded that the committee “did not achieve what it had hoped.”

The backlash from that award continues to influence the committee’s deliberations. Analysts believe the group will avoid any decision that could be seen as politically motivated or premature, particularly involving a US president.

Trump himself has frequently compared his record to Obama’s, arguing that he has done far more to advance peace.

“If my name were Obama, I’d have gotten the Nobel Prize in 10 seconds,” he said in October last year.

Other contenders for the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize

According to betting agencies, this year’s Nobel Peace Prize race features several strong candidates. Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in 2024, is considered a leading favourite.

Humanitarian organisations operating in Sudan, where civil war has persisted for more than two years, are also prominent contenders.

Trump ranks third among bookmakers’ odds, but analysts caution that betting trends rarely predict the actual outcome.

The last head of government to win the Peace Prize was Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in 2019, honoured for his efforts to reconcile with Eritrea.

However, Ethiopia later plunged into a devastating civil conflict, leading many to question the durability of that peace and the committee’s selection criteria.

Norway’s delicate position

The Norwegian Nobel Committee is technically independent, but the country’s government often faces diplomatic implications from its decisions.

Reports suggest that some Norwegian officials are concerned about a potential backlash from Washington if Trump is passed over again.

Tensions between the two countries have already escalated after Norway’s sovereign wealth fund divested from several Israeli firms and the US company Caterpillar, citing the Gaza conflict.

The move prompted threats of tariffs from the US, adding to the unease in Oslo.

While the Nobel Committee operates separately from the Norwegian state, the optics of denying an American president the Peace Prize amid such tensions could prove diplomatically awkward.

What next

The Nobel Peace Prize, first awarded in 1901, remains the only Nobel award decided outside Sweden — a distinction based on Alfred Nobel’s will of 1895, which stipulated that Norway should handle the peace category.

The laureate receives a gold medal, diploma, and a monetary prize of 11 million Swedish krona (about US $1.19 million), along with international prestige and recognition.

For Trump, winning the Nobel Peace Prize would symbolise vindication — not only of his foreign policy but also of his image as a negotiator capable of reshaping global politics.

The world will know the committee’s verdict when the Nobel Peace Prize is revealed in Oslo at 12 pm local time on October 10, 2025.

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With inputs from agencies

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