President Trump is raking up global support in his push for a Nobel Peace Prize \u2014 garnering nominations from Pakistan, Cambodia, Israel and GOP lawmakers as he touts his role in talks to end various global conflicts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friday may be Trump\u2019s biggest diplomatic test yet when he sits down with Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2002<\/u><\/a>to talk about ending the war in Ukraine, something the president has struggled to settle between the two adversaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Trump has succeeded in other long-standing conflicts. The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, who have been at war over territory shared by their two countries for decades, floated a joint nomination for Trump when they visited the White House recently for a U.S.-brokered peace summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The White House is publicly arguing it is \u201cwell past time\u201d Trump gets the prize. A source close to Trump World said the White House is \u201cvery serious\u201d about getting Trump the prize, adding that \u201con the merits, it\u2019s pretty straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The list of those who agree has been growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pakistan nominated Trump for the prize for his mediation of a ceasefire between the country and India in May. After he ended another conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, the former said this month<\/u><\/a> it would nominate Trump for the prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rep. Darrell Issa\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-Calif.) in March<\/u><\/a> said he would nominate Trump for the award, and Rep. Buddy Carter\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-Ga.) nominated him in June<\/u><\/a>, citing his role in brokering a ceasefire agreement between Iran and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The award is given annually in December by the Norwegian Nobel Committee to someone who has worked to establish peace between nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A former aide in Trump\u2019s first term said senior State Department officials have the Nobel Peace Prize in the back of their heads at all times, an idea that shapes how they think about the big picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s no question the pressure\u2019s on,\u201d the former aide said. \u201cTrump sees this prize as the ultimate capstone to how history will remember him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet lauded Trump\u2019s \u201chistoric contributions to advancing world peace\u201d in an announcement this week<\/u><\/a> on the Nobel nomination. Similarly, Pakistan praised Trump for \u201cpragmatic diplomacy and effective peace-building\u201d when it nominated him. India has denied that Trump played a role in its military decisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n White House trade adviser Peter Navarro\u2002<\/u><\/a>in July said Trump deserves<\/u><\/a> a Nobel Prize specifically for restructuring the international trade environment with his aggressive tariff plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And the president himself said he deserved the prize after a deal was announced in June<\/u><\/a> to end the conflict between Rwanda and Congo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not politicking for it. I have a lot of people that are,\u201d Trump said Friday about the award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, peace in two of the world\u2019s major wars \u2014 between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel and Hamas \u2014 has proven elusive for Trump, who set high expectations for his negotiating acumen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump has increasingly grown frustrated that he can\u2019t end the fighting in Ukraine after promising on the campaign trail to achieve peace \u201con Day 1.\u201d He has pulled various levers, like imposing new sanctions on Russia and sanctions on India for buying Russian oil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The White House has tempered expectations for the Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska on Friday, at times calling it a \u201clistening session.\u201d Trump has said this week that he would know in a matter of minutes whether Putin was serious about a peace deal. The White House has also largely avoided predicting any deliverables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to Israel, Trump showed rare daylight with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2002<\/u><\/a>during recent remarks in which he acknowledged the starvation in Gaza, vowing to increase aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Netanyahu in July, on a visit to the White House, presented Trump with a letter he sent to the Nobel Prize committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s nominating you for the peace prize, which is well-deserved. And you should get it,\u201d Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two leaders have not always seen eye to eye in public over the war in Gaza, which, like in Ukraine, has no end in site, with several ceasefire proposals falling apart this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bill O\u2019Reilly recently told<\/u><\/a> NewsNation that Trump feels the Ukraine-Russia war is the key to his prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know exactly what Trump is aiming for. He would like to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said on NewsNation\u2019s \u201cOn Balance<\/u><\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat may or may not happen. That\u2019s not the most honest organization over in Norway, but he wants to get this thing settled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other conservatives also questioned whether the effort is worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrump is obsessed with the Nobel Prize. He shouldn\u2019t be. He talks about a new type of leadership so why does he need an affirmation by a bunch of Norwegian progressives? He needs to decide whether he wants to Make America Great Again, or if he wants to be Jimmy Carter\u2002<\/u><\/a>v. 2.0,\u201d Michael Rubin,<\/u><\/a> senior fellow with the conservative Washington think tank the American Enterprise Institute, told The Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Former President Carter was awarded the prize after his presidency, in 2002, for his work to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts. Former President Obama received the award in the first year of his presidency, in 2009, for his work to strengthen international diplomacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only two other presidents have won it \u2014 former President Wilson in 1920 and former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Former Vice President Al Gore won it in 2007 for his work on combating climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTrump seems much more ideologically flexible than I think a lot of Republicans in D.C. would like him to be. And it\u2019s drive in pursuit of ego and the idea that he clearly wants to go down in history as some kind of celebrated dealmaker,\u201d one former national security aide to former President Biden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The former aide added, \u201cHe promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war famously in 24 hours, failure. He inherited a ceasefire in Gaza, failure. That\u2019s fallen apart. \u2026 He said he would try to get a nuclear deal with Iran, failure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Health, argued in an op-ed<\/u><\/a> this week that Trump deserves the prize for Operation Warp Speed, which got the COVID-19 vaccine off the ground at the end of his first term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the foreign policy front, Trump has sought to bring an end to both erupting conflicts and long-simmering disputes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n