US President Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize by a far-right Norwegian politician, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, who cited Trump's role in the recent peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the conservative Progress Party, told Fox News: 'For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees.' He added that he was not a big Trump supporter but that the committee should judge him on the facts.
The nomination comes less than two months before the US election. The barrier to entry for a nomination is low: all nominations from heads of state or national-level politicians are accepted. The winner will not be announced until October 2021.
This is the second time Tybring-Gjedde has nominated Trump; in 2018 he did so for efforts to reconcile North and South Korea. The Israel-UAE deal, announced last month, normalises relations and suspends Israeli annexation plans in the West Bank. It is the third Israel-Arab peace deal since 1948.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called it 'a hard earned and well-deserved honour'. Critics, however, describe Trump as a polarising figure. If he wins, he would be the fifth US president to receive the prize, after Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.
