Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for ‘historic’ Middle East policy

A Republican lawmaker has nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize, citing his “historic” policy in the Middle East.

New York representative Claudia Tenney said in a statement that she decided to nominate the former president for his role in the Abraham Accords treaty, which formally normalised relations between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Israel, reports The Independent.

“Donald Trump was instrumental in facilitating the first new peace agreements in the Middle East in almost 30 years,” she claimed in a statement posted on her website.

“For decades, bureaucrats, foreign policy ‘professionals’, and international organisations insisted that additional Middle East peace agreements were impossible without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Trump proved that to be false,” she added.

“The valiant efforts by President Trump in creating the Abraham Accords were unprecedented and continue to go unrecognised by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, underscoring the need for his nomination today. Now more than ever, when Joe Biden’s weak leadership on the international stage is threatening our country’s safety and security, we must recognise Trump for his strong leadership and his efforts to achieve world peace. I am honoured to nominate former president Donald Trump today and am eager for him to receive the recognition he deserves,” the statement continued.

Mr Trump has previously complained that he has not received enough recognition for his work on foreign policy.

But while the Abraham Accords have been cited as a way to introduce and strengthen Israeli-Arab ties, the historic agreements have also been criticised for so far failing to produce meaningful solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The Abraham Accords without the Palestinians were a disaster, just like his deal with the Taliban without the Afghan government. On top of that, he bombed the Middle East more than Obama,” one person posted on X, following news of Mr Trump’s Nobel Prize nomination.

‘Someone explain to me how she nominates him for a Nobel for a peace accord in the middle east WHILE the middle east is at war in Gaza!” another person wrote.

Despite such criticism of Mr Trump’s foreign policy, the 77-year-old was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize several times during his presidency. However, he failed to win the prize.

“I would get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things, if they give it out fairly, which they don’t,” the former president complained at a press conference in New York in 2019.

Mr Trump was nominated for the prize in 2020 by far-right Norwegian politician Christian Tybring-Gjedde, citing his efforts to bring reconciliation to North and South Korea.

But despite a period of improved relations between North and South Korea, the negotiations ultimately failed in making any clear progress towards denuclearizing the North.

Swedish MP Magnus Jacobsson also nominated Mr Trump in 2020 for his role in brokering a deal to normalise relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

The following year, Swedish nationalist MP Laura Huhtasaari and a group of Australian lawmakers then nominated him for his role in brokering the Abraham Accords.

Mr Trump lost out that time to Filipino and Russian journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov, who received the prize “for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace”.

The former president has routinely conflated his Nobel Peace Prize nominations - which the organisation does not record, release or consider to be endorsements - as an honorific.

Speaking at an Iowa rally in 2020, he said: “I get home, I turn home the television and they talked about your floods in Iowa. How is Iowa doing? The crops. How is this happening? How are they doing in Florida? Three or four stories, one after another.

“Where is my Nobel Peace Prize? They don’t talk about it. I said, ‘You know, darling. This news is a little tough to crack’.”

Meanwhile, former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany previously described the nomination as a “well-deserved honour” for Mr Trump.

The organisation stresses that receiving a nomination, which any one of thousands of people can make, is not an “extended honour”.

While Mr Trump has never won the prize, his predecessor, former president Barack Obama, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.

Mr Obama donated the $1.4m award to charity.

His win is something that has irked Mr Trump, who previously suggested his predecessor had “no idea” why he was nominated for the prize just months into his presidency.

“When Obama got it he didn’t even – he just said, ‘What did I do?’ He had no idea what he did,” Mr Trump said at a rally in 2020.

“And they made it a big story,” he added. “I did a great job.”

In 2013, Mr Trump tweeted calling for Mr Obama’s award to be rescinded.

The former director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, Geir Lundestad later said he regretted Mr Obama’s selection. “Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake,” he told the AP news agency. “In that sense the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for.”

The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced in October.