Trump confesses that pressure on Greenland is resentment for not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize

United States President Donald Trump linked his diplomatic and rhetorical offensive towards Greenland to resentment at not having received the Nobel Peace Prize, according to a revelation published by the Financial Times. The information is based on an initial report by PBS News and is based on messages exchanged between Trump and the Prime Minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre.

According to the content released, Trump responded to a message from Støre stating that, “considering that your country has decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize… I no longer feel an obligation to think purely about Peace, although it will always be predominant, but now I can think about what is good and appropriate for the United States of America”. In the same communication, the American president raised the tone by directly linking Greenland to international security, declaring that “the world is not safe unless we have complete and total control of Greenland”.

Jonas Gahr Støre confirmed receipt of the message on Monday morning. According to the Norwegian prime minister, the contact occurred after he sent a text to Trump to protest the US government’s attempt to impose tariffs on Norway and other European countries, in addition to sending troops to Greenland, an autonomous territory under the sovereignty of Denmark. Støre stated that his message was written “in the name” of himself and the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, and aimed to ask for the “de-escalation of the exchange of words”, in addition to requesting a telephone call between the three leaders on the same day.

The Financial Times report contextualizes that the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado. According to the text, she took the medal to the White House the previous week, in a gesture described as recognition for her “unique commitment” to Venezuela’s freedom. The episode occurred amid Trump’s public campaign for the award, in which the president has maintained that he had ended “eight wars” since returning to the White House about a year ago.

Despite the US president’s repeated statements, Norwegian authorities once again clarified that the Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded by the country’s government, but by an independent committee whose members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. A Norwegian diplomat, quoted by the Financial Times, compared the current situation to past episodes of diplomatic tension, such as the one that occurred in 2010, when the awarding of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo led to economic retaliation by China. “We had a tough fight to convince China,” said the diplomat, adding that “now we have the same tough fight with Trump.”

In the messages revealed, Trump also once again questioned the legitimacy of Denmark’s control over Greenland. While recognizing that the United States formally accepted this sovereignty in international treaties — including in the 1916 and 1917 agreements related to the sale of the then Danish West Indies — the president stated that Denmark would not be able to protect the territory from external threats. “Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a ‘property right’ anyway?” Trump wrote, adding that there would be no clear written documents, but only the historical argument of ancient occupation. He also stated that the United States would have had a similar historical presence in the region.

Trump also framed the issue in the context of NATO, reiterating a recurring speech that the United States would have disproportionately borne the bloc’s security. “I have done more for NATO than anyone else since its founding, and now NATO should do something for the United States,” the president wrote, according to the report.

According to PBS, the content of Trump’s messages was not restricted to direct exchanges with the Norwegian prime minister. The text would have been forwarded to multiple European embassies in Washington, which contributed to the rapid dissemination of the content and increased the diplomatic impact of the episode among allies of the United States.

The Financial Times highlights that, by explicitly linking the frustration at not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize to the willingness to “not think purely about peace” and, simultaneously, defending “complete and total control” of Greenland, Trump reinforces a discourse of pressure on European allies. The rhetoric, according to the newspaper’s analysis, normalizes threats in relations between allied countries and reopens the debate on territorial sovereignty in the North Atlantic under a logic of power and coercion, at a time of growing geopolitical tensions.