Norwegian far-right MP nominates Donald Trump for Nobel peace prize

A Norwegian far-right MP has nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel peace prize for a second time, citing his role in the normalising of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Christian Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News: “For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees.”

Trump responded to news of his nomination for the 2021 prize by expressing his thanks on Twitter.

The bar for being nominated for the prize is low, as nominations are accepted from any politician serving at a national level, or from heads of state. For the 2020 prize, the winner of which has yet to be announced, there were 318 candidates.

Tybring-Gjedde said in his nomination letter: “As it is expected other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a gamechanger that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity.”

As yet there has been no sign of this happening, with a recent visit by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to the region yielding no further developments.

Tybring-Gjedde was one of two Norwegian politicians who nominated Trump for the peace prize in 2018 for his efforts to bring reconciliation between North and South Korea. The Norwegian Nobel committee does not publicly comment on nominees. Under its rules, the information is required to be kept secret for 50 years.

A group of Republicans from the House of Representatives also sent an open letter to the committee in 2018 urging them to award the prize to Trump the following year.