After Trump's Campaign Last Year, Caution Hangs Over the Nobel Peace Prize Committee

Following the campaign led by US President Donald Trump last year to win the Nobel Peace Prize, experts say the committee awarding this prestigious honor will be very cautious this year in choosing the winner whose name will be announced next week.

Trump's explicit demand for the Nobel Prize put the five-member committee under unprecedented pressure last year, and the situation became more sensitive after Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the Nobel Peace laureate, gifted her gold medal to Trump, considering he deserved it after US forces detained Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

After all these events, the Nobel committee realizes it will be under Trump's watchful eye this year.

Nobel Committee Secretary General Kristian Berg Harpviken told AFP in an interview: "There are always many pressures, even attempts to influence the committee; we are very used to that."

A number of experts believe this situation may push the committee to avoid awarding the prize to controversial names. Oslo Peace Research Institute Director Håkon Løvaas says: "After last year's prize, there is no doubt they will try to avoid any controversy this year."

Løvaas prefers awarding the prize jointly to the organization "Save the Children" and Ukrainian Mykola Kuleba, who works on recovering Ukrainian children taken or forcibly deported from Ukraine by Russia.

This option might please US First Lady Melania Trump, who sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2025 appealing for the release of Ukrainian children.

Among other entities considered worthy by the Oslo Peace Research Institute are Sudan's "Emergency Rooms," a vast network of volunteers providing aid to residents facing war and famine; the Committee to Protect Journalists, given that 2025 was another disastrous year for the profession; and the International Space Station.

If the committee is willing to confront Trump, it could also award the prize to UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, or to the International Criminal Court, or even to Pope Leo XIV.