Donald Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize for ‘breakthrough’ Middle East policy

Former US President Donald Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by a Republican lawmaker, citing his role in the Abraham Accords treaty that was signed during his presidency and formally normalised relations between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE.

This is the fourth time that Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In a statement, New York representative Claudia Tenney said Trump was “instrumental” in facilitating the first new peace agreements in the Middle East in nearly 30 years, UK-based newspaper The Independent reported.

“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 said.

Pressing her case for Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Tenney said, “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,” she said in her statement.

While the Abraham Accords, signed in 2020, was seen as a move to establish and strengthen Israeli-Arab ties, they have been criticised for not bringing a final solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

Despite Trump’s criticism over his foreign policy during his presidency, the 77-year-old Republican leader was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize several times. However, he was not able to win the coveted prize.

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

In 2020, Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by far-right Norwegian politician Christian Tybring-Gjedde as he praised his efforts to improve ties between North Korea and South Korea, The Independent reported.

Trump even created history when he became the first US President to step into North Korea with Kim Jong-Un. Despite a brief period of reconciliation, talks on denuclearisation of North Korea collapsed, as Pyongyang expressed frustration with Washington’s adamance of not relaxing sanctions in exchange for stopping the production of nuclear weapons.

In the same year, Swedish lawmaker Magnus Jacobsson nominated Trump for his role in brokering a deal to normalise relations between Serbia and Kosovo.

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

However, the former US President lost out 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”.

In 2018, a group of 18 House Republicans formally nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his work to end the Korean War.

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