Nobel Peace Prize pick puts Trump reaction in focus

The Nobel Peace Prize winner will be announced Friday in Oslo, with attention focused partly on how US President Donald Trump may react after arguing that he deserves the award.

The laureate is due to be revealed at 11:00 am local time at the Nobel Institute. This year, 287 individuals and organisations have been nominated, but their identities are kept secret for 50 years.

Trump has made unsubstantiated claims that he ended up to eight wars and has said he is the most deserving candidate. On Wednesday, he said it would be “a great discredit” to the Nobel committee if it did not give the prize to “people like me”.

Nobel watchers cited in the supplied material do not expect Trump to win. In Oslo, he is generally considered disqualified because of his war against Iran, territorial expansion ambitions involving Greenland, his hard line on migrants and his attacks on multilateralism and the media.

Kristian Berg Harpviken, secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the committee discusses external pressure but is not guided by it. “It's not like that influences the discussions in the room and decisions that come out,” he told AFP.

Experts said the committee could choose a broadly acceptable laureate, such as an individual or organisation working on children or humanitarian relief. Possible names mentioned include Save the Children, Ukraine's Mykola Kuleba and Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, a network of volunteers helping people affected by war and hunger.

Other possible choices could be read as more directly challenging to Trump, including UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, Pope Leo XIV, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice.

Each Nobel prize comes with a diploma, a gold medal and a cheque for $1.2 million, to be presented on December 10.