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US President Donald Trump has linked his discovery of Greenland to his failure to win the Nobel Peace Prize in a message to Norway’s prime minister.
Trump said in a text message to Jonas Gahr Storey that “the decision was made not to award me the Nobel Peace Prize in the interest of your country… I no longer feel an obligation to think purely about peace, although it will always be preeminent, but now I can think about what is good and right for the United States”.
The US President said: “The world is not safe until we have complete and total control of Greenland.”
Storey confirmed Monday morning that he received the message in response to a message he sent to Trump in protest of the move to impose tariffs on Norway and other European countries for sending troops to Greenland. PBS News first reported the lesson.
The 2025 prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who handed Trump the Nobel Medal at the White House last week in “recognition for his unique commitment” to her country’s independence.
In the campaign to secure the award, Trump claimed he had ended eight wars since returning to the White House a year ago.
Norway has repeatedly told Trump that an independent committee – whose members are chosen by the country’s parliament – chooses the Nobel Peace Prize winner, not the government.
“We had to fight a hard struggle to persuade China,” a Norwegian diplomat said of the decision to award the 2010 peace prize to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, which led to Beijing taking economic action against the Norwegian government. “Now we have the same uphill struggle with Trump.”
Trump also repeated his claim that Denmark’s control over Greenland was questionable, despite having been recognized by the US in several treaties, including the 1916–17 convention on selling the Danish West Indies.
He wrote to Storey: “Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have “rights of ownership” anyway? There is no written documentation, it is only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we also had boats landed there.”
Trump said: “I have worked more for NATO since its founding than any other person, and now, NATO must do something for the United States.”
Storey said on Monday that his message – from him and Finnish President Alexander Stubb – “pointed to the need to reduce the exchange of words, and requested a telephone call between Trump, Stubb and me during the day”.
PBS said it had received Trump’s message after it was sent to “several” European embassies in Washington.
