President Trump Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

President Donald Trump has been nominated as a candidate for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in securing a historic peace deal recently between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament, submitted Trump’s name in a letter to the Nobel committee.

In the legislator’s letter, obtained by Fox News, he wrote, “As it is expected, other Middle Eastern countries will follow in the footsteps of the UAE, this agreement could be a game changer that will turn the Middle East into a region of cooperation and prosperity.”

The Nobel Committee has established the credentials necessary to nominate someone for a Peace Prize. Qualified nominators include members of national assemblies, cabinet members, international jurists, previous Nobel recipients, university professors and others.

This is Trump’s second nomination for the prize. Tybring-Gjedde and another Norwegian legislator also nominated Trump in 2018 for his Singapore summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.

Four past U.S. presidents have received Peace Prizes: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. The Obama prize was controversial, since he was nominated after only a couple weeks in office. He won for “his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation.”

In 2015, former Nobel Secretary Geir Lundestad criticized the Obama award, saying, “Even many of Obama’s supporters believed that the prize was a mistake. In that sense, the committee didn’t achieve what it had hoped for.”

Since its establishment in 1901, the Nobel Peace Prize has gone to 107 individuals and 27 organizations. Past recipients have included individuals such as theologian Albert Schweitzer, former U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Henry Kissinger and Mother Teresa. The award is given in a ceremony in Norway.

The Israel/UAE peace deal, which prompted the nomination, involved agreements “regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, healthcare, culture, the environment, the establishment of reciprocal embassies, and other areas of mutual benefit.”

“For his merit, I think he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other Peace Prize nominees,” Tybring-Gjedde told Fox News.

Photo is from The White House Flickr