US President Donald Trump stepped up his criticism of the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Saturday. On his social network Truth Social, he wrote that it is "incredible" that neither he nor his country received the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded on Friday to South African jurist Navanethem "Navi" Pillay.
According to La Tercera, Trump listed what he considers his achievements: "I ended 8 wars, I am close to ending or resolving another 2, I managed to bring back all the Israeli hostages, including the last 28, both living and dead." In the same message, he did not specify which eight wars he meant.
He also maintained that he "won a war in Venezuela" and captured the "violent dictator" who ruled that country, referring to Nicolás Maduro. He added that he prevented Iran, which he described as the leading state sponsor of terrorism, from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
The committee that awards the prize is based in Norway and is appointed by that country's Parliament. This year it chose Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law. Pillay was United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, a judge and a co-creator of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the court based in The Hague that tries war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Trump insisted that the prize recipient is unknown. "I know nothing about this woman, and neither does anyone else!" he wrote, adding that, as far as he knows, "she obviously hates Israel." On Friday, at a rally in Syracuse, in the state of New York, he had already said that the prize went to "a person I had never heard of."
At that same event, according to Cooperativa and BioBioChile, he described Pillay as a "liberal person who works at the United Nations" and even congratulated her. However, he called the committee "corrupt" and said the prize had been "discredited forever by a handful of radical ideologues."
Israel is at the heart of the clash. Pillay served on the UN's independent commission on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, which concluded that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The ICC also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant.
Following the prize announcement, Washington announced new sanctions against the ICC. The United States does not recognize the court's jurisdiction over its citizens because it did not ratify the Rome Statute, the treaty that established it, and applies the same position to Israel.
Venezuela connects the dispute to Latin America. Trump recalled that Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, gave him her award. In Syracuse, he went further when speaking about Venezuelan oil: "to the victor belong the spoils".
For the region, the phrase carries weight. Chile is a state party to the Rome Statute, and Washington's offensive against the ICC puts pressure on Latin American countries that support the court.
The sources have so far reported no formal responses from the Norwegian committee. According to the Norwegian Nobel Institute, this year there were more than 280 nominations, 208 for individuals and 79 for organizations, whose names will only be made public in 50 years.
