US President Donald Trump has lashed out at the Norwegian Nobel Committee after it awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to South African jurist Navi Pillay, calling the decision “disgraceful and embarrassing” and an “indelible stain” on Norway. The committee named Pillay as this year’s laureate in Oslo on Friday, honouring decades of work to strengthen international law and to bring war criminals to justice.
Trump says Norway will not be forgotten
Speaking hours later at a rally in Syracuse, New York, Trump said he had never heard of Pillay and dismissed the committee’s choice, while repeating his claim to have settled eight wars since returning to the White House. “The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues,” he told supporters, adding that the United States would not forget Norway’s decision. The president had openly campaigned for the prize in recent months and suggested this week that it was time the honour came to him.
It is the second year running that Trump has been passed over, after last year’s prize went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. His claims of credit for ending multiple conflicts have been questioned by analysts, with fighting continuing in several regions he has cited. At home, the political weather is no kinder: consumer mood has darkened to a record low in the latest survey data.
A career spent prosecuting war crimes
Pillay, 85, began her career defending anti-apartheid activists in South Africa and went on to serve as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and of the International Criminal Court, before leading the United Nations human rights office from 2008 to 2014. Committee chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes said her work had helped ensure that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are prosecuted, and he praised her courage and integrity in defence of the rule of law.
Reacting in Nuremberg, where she was attending an event at the Palace of Justice, Pillay said the news first struck her as a joke, and joked that if the applause around her continued she might share the prize with Trump. The White House, meanwhile, has been reshaping its own communications operation, announcing a new press secretary this week, as the administration presses its case that its foreign policy merits international recognition.
