Donald Trump has earned a reputation for being the guy who does what he wants, even as president of the United States… But this is only the case at first glance.
The more carefully you put a magnifying glass on the facts, the picture that emerges is quite different: the American leader says what he wants rather than does what he wants.
- Trump only said what he wanted and what went through his mind related to the Russian-Ukrainian war, but he could only do what the ground allowed him. In passing, it should be remembered, Trump said what he himself wanted to hear about Zelensky, but in reality, today, Zelensky is in the relatively comfortable position of feeling that he can squeeze the door on his counterpart, even asking him for Tomahawk missiles – and even raise on this topic (with an air of interesting defiance), on the eve of the announcement in Oslo the leader in Kiev said that Ukraine will lobby for Trump to receive Nobel Peace Prize only if Trump approves the Tomahawk deliveries. And Putin… Putin slammed the door in his face, violently and repeatedly.
- Trump, who recently demanded that no one in Europe buy oil from the Russians, not even his poodle in Budapest, Viktor Orban, has not made him give up or even announce that he will make efforts to give up buying oil.
- Trump said what he wanted about how he will economically bring China to its knees through tariffs, and how he will dictate the course of international trade, also through tariffs. After half a year, the situation is extremely different – Trump has not imposed tariffs on anyone at the level of the threats made and he has not brought China to its knees, while international trade, although massively influenced by reckless Trumpist policies, has not been bowed by the famous peacock (I recommend HERE a comprehensive x-ray freshly made by The Economist magazine).
- Finally, the U.S. leader said all kinds of things that crossed his mind about why he deserved to be the laureate of the 2025 edition of the Nobel Prize, only to see himself 100% ignored by the Oslo committee.
Donald Trump speaks like this, but things, in essence, are happening completely differently because as much as he is obsessed in what he believes, he is equally ignorant about what others think. And as ignorant as he is about what he can really do and about what the country he leads can really do, he is just as incompetent about what the leaders he takes with him and the countries they lead can actually do (respectively the alliances in which these countries are already part or that they can set up in special circumstances).
But perhaps Donald Trump’s particularly spectacular failure is the one related to the Nobel Peace Prize.
In order to receive it, he lied that he had ended seven wars and did it with the same serenity with which he labeled Zelensky a dictator, and Putin a good guy.
It is true that it has the merit of having given a valuable impetus to the end of the conflict in Gaza – but in this case it is still about the early phase, the possibility of ending the war is still far off, and the possibility of rebuilding the Gaza Strip is even further off. Moreover, the Israel-Gaza story did not reach this point just because Trump wanted to and could, but because the general context was ripe. Otherwise, these first steps toward peace should have happened as Trump became president, not nearly nine months later.
As for peace in Gaza, much in the future will depend neither on Trump personally nor only on the United States as a major power. A not insignificant role in shaping developments will also fall to a lot of state and non-state actors, small and large alike, as well as to local and international dynamic third parties.
In such a context, the mere fact of imagining that you can be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize suggests an unparalleled intellectual depravity. And the fact of having emotionally blackmailed the Nobel Committee in Oslo, invoking an alleged offense to America in the event of a laureate other than Trump, denotes a lack of morals worthy of the MAGA universe, but profoundly unworthy on any other scale of values.
In fact, on the day of the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate – the Venezuelan dissident Maria Corina Machado – the president of the Norwegian committee wanted to throw two fists of dust on the Trumpist pressures of recent months, which had only intensified in recent days and hours.
So when he was asked by a journalist how he comments on those pressures, once the winner was announced, the president of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said drily that the jury has “courage and integrity” in mind.
It’s not fair to say that Trump is completely lacking in courage – while he may lack the courage to properly confront Putin, he has the insane courage to present himself to the whole world as what he is not and what the whole world has had enough time to understand that he will never be.
But most of all, Trump lacks integrity. He is a moral clown and is also one of the major vectors of dismantling democracy (at home and abroad), as well as of the breakdown of international law.
And this aspect – integrity, in all its aspects – clearly weighed decisively in the deliberations of the Oslo jury, otherwise it would not have been mentioned by the president of the Nobel Committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes.
Most likely, the share of the “integrity” dimension could have been reduced if Trump had really been the architect of at least one peace accord (because there can be no question of seven).
But in Ukraine there is no peace, and in Gaza the first steps towards such a thing are only now being taken and no one, not even Trump, can know how things will evolve in the Strip tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and a year from now. Especially since Benjamin Netanyahu does not seem to have fired the last salvos – neither in the direction of blocking a Palestinian state, nor in the direction of the “betrayal” committed by Trump, from Netanyahu’s perspective.
The irony is that the Nobel Peace Prize went to Venezuela – and it’s good it did. But in Venezuela – who knows? – maybe a conflict will start… in which the US could be involved, for which Trump will be primarily responsible, if it starts, Putin will certainly not be absent, because he is already present.
- PS: I have been campaigning since 2023 for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Donald Trump and even Viktor Orban – I am not narrow-minded. But I also argued then, just like now, that it should be awarded on merit, and for PR reasons. “In order to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, Donald Trump and Viktor Orban would not have to fight imaginary enemies, nor risk their own lives, health or freedom, nor imagine unimaginable schemes to contribute to ensuring the peace and well-being of Earth’s populations. Each one would simply need to make a pirouette to return to common decency and historical values for the pair of them to be recognized as supreme peacemakers.” You can find the argument HERE.
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado wins 2025 Nobel Peace Prize
