Text messages from US President Donald Trump to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoer leaked to the press on Monday, suggesting that his threats to annex Greenland are linked to the decision of Norway’s Nobel Prize Committee not to give him the 2025 peace prize.
Stoer reportedly wrote to the US president over the weekend, along with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, to protest Trump’s plans to impose tariffs against countries opposed to the US taking control of the mineral-rich Arctic island, which is an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.
As per Reuters, Trump’s text read as follows: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
The prestigious award is awarded by an independent committee in line with the wishes of its founder, Norwegian industrialist Alfred Nobel. Although the committee is elected by Norway’s parliament, the government has no role in selecting each year’s winner.
Despite months of public campaigning – Trump has repeated his incorrect claim to have ended eight wars on many occasions – Trump did not receive the 2025 award. Instead, exiled Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado received the accolade for keeping the “flame of democracy burning during a growing darkness.”
The US president had pre-emptively condemned any decision to award the prize to someone else as “a big insult to our country.” After the news broke, even Russian President Vladimir Putin waded into the conversation, criticizing the committee for choosing recipients who “didn’t do anything.” Trump publicly thanked Putin for this intervention on Truth Social.
During a visit to the White House on Friday, Machado presented Trump with her medal as a “personal symbol of gratitude” for removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power. US special forces abducted Maduro from his Caracas palace on Jan. 3.
Trump, who has thus far declined to support Machado’s call for democratic elections in Venezuela, praised her decision as a “wonderful gesture of mutual respect.”
It is apparent from Trump’s leaked message, however, that some rancor remains.
“I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States,” the US president reportedly told Stoer.