The World According to Trump vs. The World According to Nobel

There are two fundamentally different ways of seeing the world at play in the debate over Donald Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize nomination. There is the world according to Trump, a competitive arena of nations vying for advantage. And there is the world according to the Nobel committee, an interconnected community that must cooperate to survive. These two worldviews are irreconcilable.
In Trump’s worldview, strength, national interest, and bilateral deals are paramount. International institutions are often seen as constraints on sovereignty, and global challenges like climate change are viewed with skepticism. Success is measured in “wins” for one’s own country. The Abraham Accords are presented as a prime example of a win achieved through this lens.
In the Nobel worldview, cooperation, shared values, and multilateral action are the keys to peace and progress. Institutions like the UN are vital, and global challenges like climate change and pandemics are seen as threats that no single nation can solve alone. Success is measured by the strengthening of the global community and the advancement of human fraternity.
These are not just different policy preferences; they are competing philosophies of international relations. The Nobel Peace Prize exists to promote and legitimize the cooperative worldview. To award it to the most prominent champion of the competitive, nationalist worldview would be a contradiction of its entire purpose.
Experts like Theo Zenou and Nina Græger have made it clear that Trump’s actions and rhetoric align with the competitive model and are thus at odds with the Nobel’s mission. The committee is a guardian of the cooperative ideal. It is therefore virtually certain that they will select a laureate who shares their vision of an interconnected world, not one who seeks to dismantle it.