Jaak Madison, an Estonian Member of the European Parliament, announced on Facebook that he has nominated the former US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Madison said he stated in his application that Trump is “the first president of the United States in the past 30 years, during whose tenure the country he led has not started any war."
“In addition, he has signed a number of peace agreements in the Middle East that have helped ensure stability and peace in the region,” the MEP said, referring to Trump’s peace proposal to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his broking of the Abraham Accords, the normalisation agreement between Israeli and the UAE.
The Estonian politician revealed that he had submitted the Nobel Peace Prize application just two hours before the 1 February deadline, using his status as a member of the parliament to nominate any candidate.
According to rules, nominations could be submitted by members of national governments, parliaments, international institutions, former Nobel Peace Prize laureates and other politics-related actors.
Madison noted he would “certainly” not be the only one to “nominate this particular candidate” but still wanted to increase the “likelihood of success".
The First ‘Peaceful’ US President in 30 Years?
The official is not entirely correct in his calculations or his wording though – neither Bill Clinton, who served as US president from 1993 to 2001, nor Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, officially started any wars or even “authorised” the use of military force through Congress, something both President George HW Bush and his son President George W Bush did, in 1991 and 2003 respectively.
But both Clinton and Obama brought the US into other conflicts - albeit with the UN authorisation only: Clinton intervened in the Bosnian War and Obama dragged the country into the Libyan Civil War with 2011 NATO-led military interference.
But former President Ronald Reagan also authorised the use of military force in Lebanon back in 1983 which in effect makes Jimmy Carter the last “peaceful” US president before Donald Trump who neither launched a new war nor sanctioned his country’s military clashes with other state actors. And that was 40 years ago.
And a month before, Norwegian MP Christian Tybring-Gjedde sent in his nomination for the former US president, saying “he has done more trying to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees.”
If the applications are accepted, Trump would compete for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize against the Black Lives Matter movement, nominated for the award by Norwegian MP Petter Eide, who said it became an important worldwide force to “fight racial injustice".
BLM protests, that swept the US this summer after the death of George Floyd in police custody, have led to dozens of victims, arsons and ruined businesses after peaceful demonstrations got out of control, prompting the National Guard to be brought in in some major US cities.
Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, has also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The recipient of the award will be decided next autumn in Oslo.
