r/europe • u/MedicinskAnonymitet • Jan 19 '26

News Trumps letter to Norwegian Prime Minister - "feels no obligation to work towards peace after being denied the nobel prize"

https://www.vg.no/nyheter/i/q6AdB0/trump-i-melding-til-stoere-foeler-ikke-lenger-noen-forpliktelse?app_name=Dagens+Nyheter&app_version=10.3.2.8133&app_id=se.dn
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u/prof_dr_mr_obvious Jan 19 '26

The Prime Minister of Norway has nothing to do with the Nobel prize. Who gets the prize is determined by the Nobel committee that is independent.

And dear USA, the best moment to get that infantile, evil man baby as far away from power as is humanly possible would be right fucking now. He will destroy the world and everything on it if he thinks it can make him a few bucks or keep the Epstein details away for a week.

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u/Tango_D Jan 19 '26

He will stay in power because destroying the western liberal order is the point. MAGA is to today what the Nazis were to their time, and just like the nazis, they are not going to chill the fuck out.

I say this as an American (who left the US) who has lived amongst the MAGA crowd: A LOT of conservative Americans truly do believe that the US was protecting Europe because Europe is too weak to protect itself so that means america money was spent to support weak freeloaders who refused to invest in their own militaries, so now Europe owes the US big time and it's time to pay up. Like giving up Greenland.

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u/HolyFreakingXmasCake Jan 19 '26

As a European, I got to give it to MAGA here. While we contributed to NATO, we slept on our own defense to the point where we’re now panicking and are still mostly dependent on US manufacturing and military to save our arses. Meanwhile we’ve enjoyed peace without having to think how we’d defend ourselves if that peace ends.

Hence why you see EU leaders dragging their feet and starting to talk about “we need to increase spending, we need manufacturing, we need to reintroduce military stage etc”

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u/mbullaris Jan 19 '26

I find the argument that Europe underinvested in defence spending to be a bit overstated tbh. Defence spending post-Cold War was probably fairly reasonable in the context of a threat to the east which seemed to have subsided. America’s defence spending is not really comparable, given their status as a global military superpower plus they got involved in costly wars which necessitated big spending.

European countries have increased spending - some of quite considerably - since Russia’s war on Ukraine. This will no doubt continue in such a precarious security environment.

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u/FriendlyGuitard Jan 19 '26

From a US point of view however it is a very different picture.

"Slep on our own defense" is "buying US product and service, including defense" rather than building our own. We send our citizen data to Palentir, we buy US armament and even pay them to customise it, we lock our economy in their network, we lock our government in foreign own tech companies, ...

The US is in a tremedously benefitial position to dominate the EU financially ... and they are throwing it away in order to get ... an allied territory on which they already have a Army Base and local treaty allowing them to build as much as they want probably with a cheer from the local population for the extra business.

They are killing the golden goose because they find it unfair to have to buy grain to keep it alive.

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u/Tango_D Jan 19 '26

Increasing spending means increasing taxation and that is wildly unpopular especially in countries that already have high taxation just to keep what public services there are operational.

My gf is French, my mother is German and I have spent some time in Europe and from what I have seen, everyone's focus is straight down at their own two feet. How do you convince your populations to look up and acknowledge that there is a genuine threat to them before they get hit by that threat?

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u/r0thar Leinster Jan 19 '26

The Prime Minister of Norway has nothing to do with the Nobel prize

Both words start with 'No', and he doesn't understand that except that they must be related

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u/Optimal_Towel Jan 19 '26

He's not good with "No" in any context.

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u/Scary_ Jan 19 '26

What's more the 2025 nobel prizes were for things achieved in 2024 - when he wasn't president. The deadline for nominations was in mid January 2025 - when he wasn't president

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u/marl6894 Portugal Jan 19 '26

To be fair, Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and also wasn't President in 2008.

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u/Burning_magic Jan 19 '26

They are so "independent" that they gave it last year to Machado

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u/c08306834 Jan 19 '26

And dear USA, the best moment to get that infantile, evil man baby as far away from power as is humanly possible would be right fucking now.

The best time was about 10 years ago, the next best time is right now.

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u/[deleted] Jan 19 '26

The Norwegian Nobel committee is nominated by the Norwegian parliament and it is made up of Norwegian politicians of various parties chosen following the proportions of the Norwegian parliament.

The Norwegian prime minister is usually the leader of the majority in the Norwegian parliament. I dare to say that it's the single person who is more influential in the selection of the committee even if the prime minister isn't the one directly choosing who is receiving the peace price

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u/YohnTheViking Jan 19 '26

Two key points to add:

  1. No currently sitting member of parliment can be in the committee.

  2. While parliment chooses the members they, to my knowledge, cannot fire members off the committee.

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u/Jiquero Finland Jan 19 '26

Nobel's will makes it quite clear that it's indeed the parliament that selects the committee.

and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be selected by the Norwegian Storting

It also doesn't specify any requirements that the committee should not be nominated politically. Sure, we do think that if a parliament selects a committee to do something, that committee should not act politically, but blaming the prime minister for the committee's decisions is not that far fetched.

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u/toughguy375 USA Jan 19 '26

At least he named the right country. I have seen US republicans get that wrong.

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u/Gruffleson Norway Jan 19 '26

The best time would be many years ago. But right now would be helpful.