L’Empire, c’est la paix: The Trump campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize

On 7 July, Benjamin Netanyahu presented Donald Trump with a copy of a letter in which the Israeli Prime Minister formally recommended the American President for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the moment, caught on video, Trump responded by saying, “Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful.” Trump has also been nominated by Ukrainian and Pakistani politicians, the Gabonese President, Cambodia, and an assortment of Republican politicians from his own country – nominations that did not come out of nowhere as Trump and his supporters have long advocated for a Nobel Peace Prize, with nominations dating back to his first term.

On 31 July, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted that Trump had taken credit for “about one peace deal or ceasefire per month during his six months in office,” and as a result, “It is well past time that President Trump was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” While his longstanding campaign for such recognition has been mocked, Trump’s yearning for the designation of ‘peacemaker’ is so well-publicised because it appeals to his supporter-base, to whom he promised to ‘stop the wars’.

Trump has goaded many world leaders into offering up such flattery. In a February 2025 press conference alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump complained how “They will never give me a Nobel Peace Prize… It’s too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me.” A few months later, the Israeli Prime Minister offered up an official letter of endorsement to the Nobel Prize Committee. The flattery of a Nobel nomination provides a way for some states to attempt to get Trump on their side in regional conflicts. For instance, Trump took credit for brokering a May 2025 ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Pakistan accordingly nominated the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize, while the Indian government disputed Trump’s claims. As a result, while an oil exploration deal has been struck between the US and Pakistan, Trump has imposed new 25 percent tariffs on Indian imports.

The title of peacemaker, used alongside that of unifier, by Trump at his second inaugural address has long been evoked by leaders fostering a personality cult built on authority, power, and influence. This is seen historically in Bonapartism; take, for instance, Canova’s statue Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, which portrays the emperor as possessed by the idyllic embodiment of peace-bringing victoriousness. This spirit was later mirrored in Napoleon III’s assurance that ‘L’Empire, c’est la paix.’

Through his numerous public affirmations of assertive peacefulness, Trump has accordingly set the terms for his foreign policy legacy. Legacy has been of particular importance to the president since an attempt was made on his life during the 2024 election campaign. Fixing himself firmly within the context of the interregnum failed attempts of the Biden administration to foment peace in Afghanistan and Ukraine, Trump has rhetorically dedicated himself to a corrective approach.

This Trumpian approach, while professedly a strict adherence to American interests and a transactional realism distrusting of attachment, is informed by the cultural distaste of war that followed in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan. Vice President JD Vance, in a post on X, attempted to define a Trump Doctrine as follows: 1) clearly define an American interest; 2) negotiate aggressively to achieve that interest; 3) use overwhelming force if necessary. Presumably in order to emphasize the peaceful intentions of this doctrine, in a later speech Vance elaborated, amending the third point to the extent that “when you can’t solve [a problem] diplomatically, you use overwhelming military power to solve it and then you get the hell out of there before it ever becomes a protracted conflict.” These remarks, delivered in the wake of the June 2024 Israeli and American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, were designed to project a narrative of an enforced peace with minimal exertion.

The attempts to codify and rationalize Trumpian foreign policy – which remains to some critics emblematic of strategic irrationality – shine some light on the renewed interest in Trump’s eligibility for the Nobel Peace Prize. First, it may serve more immediate political purposes by addressing the disparity caused by the award’s controversial bestowment to Trump’s great rival, Barack Obama.

President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”, referencing his “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” Obama had been the president for mere months, and his award has long stood as a point of contention for Republicans. “Being awarded the Nobel Prize with such a thin resume is embarrassing for the President”, a senior Republican aide quipped at the time. The ostensibly weak standing on which Obama’s laureateship rested is not easily forgotten by the Trump camp.

Accordingly, Trump’s longstanding hatred of his first presidential predecessor – which, in July 2025, manifested itself in a burgeoning campaign to arrest Obama, amplified by Trump posting an AI-generated video of the arrest taking place – has exemplified the way that the personal and political tend to merge. Trump’s many references to the Nobel Peace Prize in his speeches throughout his political career are consistently peppered with complaints about Obama. Trump supporters tend to characterize the award as a direct competition of sorts, with his son Donald Jr. posting on X that “Affirmative action is when Barack Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize instead of Donald Trump.” Notably, this sense of injustice does not correspond with any claim that the Nobel Peace Prize is itself worthless. While Trump has declared that he would unjustly never be awarded the Prize, he is not willing to concede its symbolic value to his opposition.

If Trump cares so much about being seen as one of history’s great American presidents, why does the Nobel Peace Prize really matter? Apart from Theodore Roosevelt, the list of American presidential laureates – Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama – consists of figures whom Trump would likely disregard. Certainly, it provides a valuable opportunity for monumentation – something rare for a politician in office. In the milieu of controversy and institutional destabilization continually spiralling around the Trump administration, such an award would be meaningful in providing a normalized indication of exceptionalism in the face of all detractors. What the Nobel Peace Prize offers to Trump is not solely a spiteful association with his predecessors as president, but a tangible recording of success to back up his boastful claims. Otherwise, despite his repeated declarations of victory on the political stage, his actions will be contested.

Following the June 2024 strikes against Iran, titled ‘the 12 day war’ by the White House, Trump and his cabinet fought vociferously against criticisms that the stated objective of removing Iranian nuclear capabilities had apparently not been achieved. Simultaneously, Trump faced objection to the strikes from several MAGA allies, with isolationists in Congress denouncing the interventionist turn and figures like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon predicting a Third World War. Not that Trump had to justify the strikes to his voter base, as polls showed overwhelming support, with nine in ten Republican voters in favour of the strikes.

However, despite general support for strikes against Iran (with 55 percent of Americans in favour according to Axios) most voters polled were also wary of the likelihood of peace, with 75 percent believing escalation to be inevitable. The idea of a Nobel Prize, therefore, may serve not only to justify the intervention, but to assuage any present fears of long-term disruption.

While Nobel Peace Prize nominations can join a slew of other methods proven to win Trump’s approval – such as the purchasing of his meme coin – the advent of world leaders using this approach to diplomacy with Trump sets a hazardous precedent. The assessment of the president’s foreign policy doctrine, and his peacemaker status, is being muddled by the approach of political figures to flatter Trump for diplomatic purposes. The obvious nature of Trump’s solicitations for endorsements of his preferred peacemaker legacy, primarily through Nobel Peace Prize nominations, are useful in the moment, though they weaken any symbolic historical value that would come with him actually being awarded the prize. This represents a Catch-22 problem that is characteristic of Trump. He relies on his disruptive political behaviour for success as a populist; this therefore alienates him from traditional politics, making him reliant on relentless self advocation in order to legitimize his status; however, in advocating for legitimacy he pursues the same traditional symbols of status that he disrupted in the first place, therefore delegitimizing them as he finds success.

Donald Trump is not unique in his desire to assert strength through the adoption of the peacemaker moniker. It is a rhetorical device that has proved attractive for many leaders, intent on asserting an aloof international authority – notably, in Bonapartist politics. However, such open self-advocation has often led to ironic results. Napoleon’s statue as Mars the Peacemaker – a mawkishly flattering portrait – now stands in the stairwell of Apsley House, home of Napoleon’s bane the Duke of Wellington, an eternal reminder of hubristic failure. Napoleon III’s phrase, ‘‘L’Empire, c’est la paix,’ was in fact more popular from humiliating cartoons rather than as a triumphant mantra. Famously, the British satirical magazine Punch featured the French Emperor uttering the phrase while in the form of a sour-faced porcupine, bristling with bayonets. Trump has taken the classic method of flattering a head of state with benevolent peace-through-strength and adapted it for use within his leverage-based negotiation style. This will give him a sense of immediate success, so much so that he need not actually win any peace awards, but may nonetheless hinder the longevity of his historical reputation as a ‘peacemaker’.