Jonas Gahr Støre, the mild-mannered prime minister of Norway and the scion of a rich industrial household, was returning house from a ski outing one Sunday final month when he determined to sprint off a textual content message to Donald Trump. Composing it from the automobile, he proposed that the leaders discuss to search out an off-ramp from the looming disaster over Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory that the American president has been publicly threatening to grab.
Trump’s marketing campaign poses a menace not simply to Greenland and Denmark but in addition to NATO. The day earlier than Støre’s textual content, Trump had vowed to impose tariffs on a handful of European international locations that had despatched troopers to the Arctic territory in a present of unity with Denmark. The Norwegian prime minister prompt to Trump that they “deescalate,” entreating him, “a lot is going on round us the place we have to stand collectively.” The message was co-signed by one other Scandinavian chief, Alexander Stubb, the president of Finland.
Two hours later, Støre was sitting at his desk at house when Trump’s reply arrived. “Expensive Jonas: Contemplating your Nation determined to not give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I not really feel an obligation to assume purely of Peace, though it would all the time be predominant, however can now take into consideration what is sweet and correct for the US of America,” Trump wrote. He went on to declare that he had “executed extra for NATO than every other particular person since its founding.” And he concluded by insisting on “Full and Whole Management of Greenland.”
The alternate got here up this weekend once we interviewed Støre on the sidelines of the Munich Safety Convention. We had been talking about NATO, Arctic safety, and the state of transatlantic relations. The now-infamous textual content alternate issues for all three. Trump had beforehand cited U.S. nationwide safety because the rationale for buying Greenland. However his message to Støre displayed a way more private motivation—primarily a match of pique at not being lauded by Norway’s most prestigious establishment. What was it like, we needed to know, to obtain such a message from the American president, the chief of Norway’s most vital ally?
“What did I believe?” Støre mentioned, elevating his eyebrows. “I believed, Properly, it is simply bringing the talk to a stage the place we don’t clear up issues.” That appeared like an understatement, however he continued. “I’m not going to interact in a shouting match,” he mentioned. “I’m not going to reply to it.” Støre did reply to Trump, he instructed us, sending again a brief message that mentioned, as he paraphrased it, “I take your message; I nonetheless assume it’s helpful to speak.”
In his first prolonged remarks concerning the back-and-forth, the prime minister instructed us that he was not shocked by the grievance-filled communication as a result of he’s acquainted by now with Trump’s fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize. He has repeatedly instructed the president that stress gained’t assist his trigger, given how prize selections are made. “I reminded him each time that it’s not my determination; it’s not the federal government’s determination. That is an impartial committee. It’s staunchly impartial,” Støre mentioned. The method is so divorced from politics, he added, that “a few of my diplomats say, , ‘If the prime minister would attempt to intrude with the Nobel committee, he must resign, as a result of it could merely be unacceptable.’”
Trump appears to not settle for that clarification. “He doesn’t pay attention on that frequency, I’d say,” Støre mentioned, holding up his hand to his ear. “So, right here it got here with that message.” Ten minutes after receiving Trump’s response, the prime minister obtained phrase from NATO colleagues that that they had obtained the identical missive. The White Home had transmitted the reply to quite a few European embassies in Washington, in essence presenting the president’s diatribe about being denied the peace prize as a proper White Home place.
A columnist for Norway’s main newspaper put it bluntly: “For the primary time in Nobel historical past, warfare was threatened as a result of a head of state didn’t obtain the Peace Prize,” Harald Stanghelle wrote in Aftenposten. “It couldn’t be extra absurd.”
How and to whom the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded have been subjects of each fascination and controversy since Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist who earned a fortune from the invention of dynamite, left provisions in his will for a collection of prestigious awards in varied pursuits, together with literature and chemistry. The peace prize has been awarded practically yearly since 1901 by a committee of 5 members, all of them appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.
Their secretive deliberations happen on the Norwegian Nobel Institute, which Trump has pushed into an unwelcome highlight. Its director, Kristian Berg Harpviken, instructed us that the institute has responded by attempting to be extra open about the way in which it chooses a winner annually, hoping transparency can assist deflect the accusations of bias coming from Trump and his supporters. “The technique for clearing the air is solely to speak about it,” he mentioned in an interview in Munich. (When requested why the pinnacle of an institute that rewards initiatives of peace would attend a summit dedicated to issues of warfare, Harpviken defined that such occasions assist him give knowledgeable recommendation to members of the Nobel Committee.)
A sociologist by coaching, Harpviken responds to questions on Trump with a drained smile. “We can not focus on particular names,” he mentioned. In the course of the hour we spent at an outside café regardless of the sleety winter climate, he referred to the U.S. president solely because the “candidate in query,” and did his greatest to keep away from expressing even the slightest trace of an opinion about him.
He centered as an alternative on the historical past of the institute he has run since final January, and the way in which its traditions function the most effective protection towards Trump’s assaults. “We see it as vital that as many individuals as attainable perceive how it’s that we work and what the rules are,” Harpviken instructed us. “Whether or not these lobbying for the prize are receptive to that or not is actually past our management.”
Early on, the federal government in Oslo arguably used the prize as a instrument of international affect. It was awarded in 1906 to Theodore Roosevelt, “clearly a really political determination on the time,” Harpviken mentioned. The Norwegians had gained their independence from Sweden solely the 12 months earlier than, and so they needed to draw Roosevelt’s consideration and his assist towards “their European rivals, significantly Sweden,” he mentioned.
Over the a long time, because the status of the prize grew, the Nobel Committee developed safeguards towards political affect. However it has not all the time stopped politicians from giving it a steer. One in all them, in accordance with a former Nobel insider, was Støre. In 2010, when he was serving as Norway’s international minister, Støre allegedly approached the then-chair of the Nobel Committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, and defined the harm that Norway’s economic system would face from China if the prize had been awarded to the dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was then serving a prolonged jail sentence. (Jagland divulged the encounter with Støre in his 2020 autobiography, Du skal eie det selv [You Yourself Must Own It.])
In a press release responding to Jagland’s account, Støre instructed us: “It is a crucial precept that the Norwegian Nobel Committee stay impartial and free. As I did already in 2010, I categorically reject this assertion. I’ve by no means executed something to jeopardize the independence of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.” The committee granted the prize to Liu, and Beijing retaliated by imposing restrictions on Norwegian items and slicing off diplomatic relations with Oslo for six years.
Lots of the Nobel Committee’s selections have brought about worldwide outrage. The selection of Aung San Suu Kyi, a dissident in Myanmar who obtained the prize in 1991, started to look problematic when Aung got here to energy in 2016 and defended the genocide that the Burmese army carried out towards the Rohingya, an ethnic minority group.
Barack Obama gained the 2009 prize lower than a 12 months into his presidential tenure. The speech he had delivered in Prague earlier that 12 months, during which he pledged to work towards a world with out nuclear weapons, helped persuade the committee that he was a worthy recipient, though he would in impact be honored for actions he had promised however not but delivered. Throughout each of his phrases in workplace, Obama made in depth use of drone strikes within the pursuit of American army targets in Afghanistan and the Center East, resulting in debate amongst Norwegian politicians and intellectuals about whether or not the prize had been a mistake.
In latest months, amid the stress from Trump and his supporters, Harpviken has spent loads of his time explaining the committee’s requirements of discretion and objectivity. All information of its deliberations stay sealed for 50 years after every prize is awarded. All members of the committee signal nondisclosure agreements, he mentioned, and observe strict guidelines of secrecy concerning the candidates for the prize and the choice course of yearly: “Even my spouse is aware of completely nothing about who’s nominated.”
No politicians in Norway have tried to sway the committee’s views on whether or not Trump could be a deserving recipient of the prize, he mentioned. “We haven’t had the embassy or officers knocking on our doorways. Nothing like that.” The marketing campaign from Trump and his supporters, he added, is not going to affect the committee’s deliberations in any means. “A candidate who’s aggressively campaigning for him or herself will neither be penalized nor privileged,” he mentioned. “We’re very aware about that.”
None of because of this Trump is probably going to surrender his quest. “President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize many instances over,” Anna Kelly, a White Home spokesperson, mentioned in an e mail.
Before his textual content alternate with Trump, Støre had not been planning to attend the upcoming World Financial Discussion board in Davos. He modified his plans as a result of tensions over Greenland appeared more likely to erupt within the Swiss mountain city. Støre sat within the viewers as Trump introduced his grudge towards NATO to the group of the world’s elites, saying, because the prime minister summarized the message, We give all the things to NATO, and we get nothing in return. The speech introduced motive for some aid, as a result of Trump dominated out using army pressure to take Greenland. Hours later, he additionally backed off his menace of tariffs after a gathering with NATO Secretary Basic Mark Rutte. A working group involving senior officers from the U.S., Denmark, and Greenland is now in search of a compromise that might permit an expanded U.S. army presence on Greenland.
However Trump’s underlying message concerning the dynamics inside NATO was flawed, Støre mentioned. NATO international locations, together with the US, profit enormously from Norway’s army experience, particularly within the Arctic, the place the Nordic nation shares a land and maritime border with Russia. Norwegian forces, with British and American counterparts, monitor Russian capabilities within the excessive north, Støre instructed us, feeding again info on the place Russia is transferring its submarines and the way it checks its weaponry. “100 kilometers from that border you’ve the Russian nuclear-strike capability,” Støre mentioned. “And as I inform my American interlocutors, it’s not primarily instantly towards me, however towards you.”
And far as they fail to understand the dynamics of the Nobel awards, U.S. officers don’t give due credit score to Norway’s deep information and expertise coping with Russia. “Norway has been Russia’s neighbor for a thousand years, and Norway has in reality been at peace with Russia for a thousand years,” Støre mentioned, noting that his nation is one in every of Russia’s solely European neighbors with which it’s by no means been in direct armed battle.
Støre credited Trump for initiating negotiations with Russia over a possible peace settlement in Ukraine, reward he instructed us that he shared with the president when he visited the White Home final April. Washington, he mentioned, nonetheless has a significant position to play: “It’s solely the may of America that may carry the Russians to the desk.”
In the aftermath of the Greenland disaster, Støre resorts to what’s by now a typical European train: discovering trigger for optimism within the in any other case bewildering interactions with Trump and his administration.
He’s inspired by the protection cooperation with Washington even when disagreements emerge, as they did when J. D. Vance instructed Europe’s governments on the 2025 Munich convention that they pose a better menace to their very own societies than Russia or China do. We spoke simply earlier than Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed this 12 months’s convention, padding the administration’s criticism of Europe with a softer tone. “In a time the place politics could get tough within the dialogue, as in J.D. Vance’s speech right here final 12 months and President Trump’s speech in Davos, there’s some stability on this defense-intelligence layer,” Støre instructed us.
As for his textual content alternate with Trump, he mentioned, “I’d merely, , pay tribute to Trump that he takes messages.” Joe Biden, he mentioned, “by no means did.”
“I imply, you’ll be able to entry him,” Støre mentioned of Trump, clasping his fingers then resting them resolutely on the desk earlier than him. “We’re leaders, and I admire that.”
