‘Nobel laureates filled with courage, integrity,’ says committee after dashing Trump’s hopes

The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuela’s opposition leader and democracy activist Maria Corina Machado while overlooking US President Donald Trump, who had been clamouring for it, in a move ruffled the White House. The White House criticised the Nobel Committee and called the decision “politically motivated”. “Once again, the Nobel Committee has proved they place politics over peace,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung said in a post on X.

Trump, who claimed to have resolved several international conflicts, had been coveting the prestigious prize and openly expressed his desire for it. His Democratic predecessor Barack Obama won the peace prize in 2009.

However, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides the awardees, said that the decision on awarding the coveted prize is based on the work and will of Alfred Nobel, the founder of the Nobel Prize.

WATCH: Venezuelan Leader María Corina Machado, Not Trump, Wins Nobel Peace Prize

‘We base only our decision on the work and will of Alfred Nobel’

“This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So, we base only our decision on the work and will of Alfred Nobel,” Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the committee, told a press briefing.

The five-member Nobel Committee, which awards the five Nobel prizes, bases its decisions on the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, who established the peace prize, along with literature, chemistry, physics, and medicine.

The Nobel Committee described Machado as a ‘key, unifying figure’, as it deemed her worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump had received several nominations from all across the world, including Russia, Rwanda, Gabon, Azerbaijan, and Cambodia. Several leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Pakistani leader Shehbaz Sharif, had nominated the US President for the prize.

However, the awarding committee said they have seen several instances of campaigns and media attention regarding the peace prize.

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“We receive thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace,” Frydnes said, adding that the committee values courage and integrity while awarding the prize.

Trump said several times, including at the UN General Assembly, that he should be awarded Nobel prize for his contributions in ending “seven wars in seven months”. The ceasefire in Gaza came into effect on Thursday.

“They’ll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that. I did it because I saved a lot of lives,” Trump said on Thursday.

Last year the Nobel Peace Prize went to Japan's Nihon Hidankyo, a 69-year-old grassroots movement of survivors of the US’ bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, campaigning for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Trump’s desperate bid also rode on fake claims of having stopped the India-Pakistan war.

India firmly rubbished any talk of Trump playing a role in the cessation of hostilities with Pakistan in May, stating the conflict was halted only after a direct request from that country.

Also Trump, notably, could not end the war in Ukraine, which he declared last year he would end within days of being sworn in as president.