By Philip Yeung
This year's Nobel Prize awards have been overshadowed by one man: Donald Trump. With this 800-lb gorilla in the room, who cares about the winner of the chemistry or the physics prize? No one will remember their names. Everyone had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And when it did, the entire world held its breath, waiting for the Trump wrath to be unleashed.
Under Trump's giant shadow, the eventual winner Maria Machado, a Venezuelan democratic activist, was reduced to just a historical footnote.It is the pathetic triumph of the underdog. I smell a bit of Trump-baiting in the Nobel Committee's decision—calculated to placate an angry and disappointed Trump. It was a shrewd move, cold-shouldering Trump without teeing him off. The Venezuela connection is a safe bet. After all, Trump has put a $50 million bounty on the head of Maduro, its president. The enemy of your enemy is your friend. By this logic, Maria is at least on the right side of Trump's geopolitics. Wisely, she made a preemptive call, telling Trump that she was receiving the honor on his behalf. She spared herself Trump's murderous jealousy. Norway heaved a sigh of relief. The Trump rage has been contained, if not disarmed, for now. The can has been kicked down the road for another year.
The Nobel Prize is supposed to be above politics. But this year, in the Trump swamp, it is drowning in dirty political waters. Never has a nominee lobbied so loudly, so brazenly, so shamelessly to tilt the outcome in his own favor. Trump was literally drooling over the prospects of taking the prize home, simply because he wants what Obama has, and in his envious eyes, Obama is a president of the wrong color. Obama black versus Trump blond.
Typically, Trump used every trick in his bag to score. He had openly called Norway's finance minister to discuss the Nobel Peace Prize and, in the same breath, talked about, (what else?) tariffs. The linkage between the two was unmistakable. Then he fired another shot, swearing on social media that if he didn't win, it would be an insult to America. He was holding Norway hostage and demanding a ransom. Trump has dishonored the noble Nobel Peace Prize.
It was rumored that Trump had been disqualified for this year's award, a rumor flatly denied by the Nobel Nomination Committee. What is widely known is that Norway has been bracing itself for Trump's swift and brutal reprisal should he emerge empty-handed.
Norway has been nervously awaiting the aftermath: Trump tariffs, higher NATO military budgets, or, God forbid, being named as an enemy. This is a dangerous man, an uncontrollable wrecking ball. Saying no to Trump comes at a cost more than you can afford.
There are 1001 reasons why Trump should face automatic disqualification for the peace prize. He has a rap sheet longer than his fat arm, having threatened to annex Canada as the 51st state of America, eyeing to take over Greenland from Denmark by force, if need be, and agitating to seize the Panama Canal. Scores of citizens of Venezuela and Columbia have been killed by US forces, claiming without offering evidence that they were drug traffickers. In the Middle East powder keg, America bombed Iran's nuclear facilities amid negotiations. This is not the behavior of a peacemaker. But out of the blue, practically in the eleventh hour, Trump cobbled together a Gaza Peace Plan, in a transparent ploy to sway the Nobel judges. Had he acted earlier, he could have saved thousands of innocent lives in the Gaza hellhole.
In trade, Trump has weaponized tariffs indiscriminately. The global trading order is in total turmoil, with Trump using his unpredictability as a bargaining chip against friends and foes alike. Back in his own country, he has ordered national guards into cities to fight his own people in Democrat-controlled states. Civil war looms.
On his forehead, he wears the stigma of a convicted serial criminal.
Had Trump won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, all Nobel Prizes would instantly be rendered valueless, as the award would be perceived to be made under duress, and pinched by a crime boss.
With Trump, every move is transactional, including a peace deal. We are arm-wrestling with a mob boss who dictates his own laws of the jungle. You play by his rules.
Congratulations if you had placed no bets on a Trump win this year. It would have been money down the drain. You might as well have given the cash to the prostitutes and gigolos prowling the streets of New York. At least, you would be doing some social good and sleeping on a clear conscience.
But next year, Trump will loom even larger. Can the Nobel Committee dodge the bullet twice? If the Gaza peace holds and war is halted in Ukraine, that is enough moral justification for the Committee to hold its nose and let Trump steal the deal.
Norway will need lots of luck and a large dose of strategic wisdom to survive the next Trump typhoon.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Read more articles by Philip Yeung:
Opinion | A mad, stupid Trump leaves America dying, dislocated and in disarray
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