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 automotive, he proposed that the leaders discuss to seek 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 risk 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 nations that had despatched troopers to the Arctic territory in a present of unity with Denmark. The Norwegian prime minister advised 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. “Pricey 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 suppose 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 “achieved extra for NATO than another individual since its founding.” And he concluded by insisting on “Full and Whole Management of Greenland.”
The change got here up this weekend once we interviewed Støre on the sidelines of the Munich Safety Convention. We have been talking about NATO, Arctic safety, and the state of transatlantic relations. The now-infamous textual content change 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—basically 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 essential ally?
“What did I believe?” Støre mentioned, elevating his eyebrows. “I believed, Nicely, it is simply bringing the controversy to a degree the place we don’t resolve issues.” That appeared like an understatement, however he continued. “I’m not going to have interaction in a shouting match,” he mentioned. “I’m not going to answer it.” Støre did reply to Trump, he advised us, sending again a brief message that mentioned, as he paraphrased it, “I take your message; I nonetheless suppose it’s helpful to speak.”
In his first prolonged remarks concerning the back-and-forth, the prime minister advised us that he was not stunned 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 advised the president that strain received’t assist his trigger, given how prize choices are made. “I reminded him each time that it’s not my choice; it’s not the federal government’s choice. That is an unbiased committee. It’s staunchly unbiased,” Støre mentioned. The method is so divorced from politics, he added, that “a few of my diplomats say, you realize, ‘If the prime minister would attempt to intrude with the Nobel committee, he must resign, as a result of it will merely be unacceptable.’”
Trump appears to not settle for that rationalization. “He doesn’t pay attention on that frequency, I might 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 bought phrase from NATO colleagues that they’d acquired 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, struggle 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 numerous pursuits, together with literature and chemistry. The peace prize has been awarded almost 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, advised us that the institute has responded by attempting to be extra open about the best way it chooses a winner every year, hoping transparency may also help deflect the accusations of bias coming from Trump and his supporters. “The technique for clearing the air is just to speak about it,” he mentioned in an interview in Munich. (When requested why the top of an institute that rewards initiatives of peace would attend a summit dedicated to issues of struggle, 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’t talk about particular names,” he mentioned. Throughout the hour we spent at an out of doors 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 targeted as an alternative on the historical past of the institute he has run since final January, and the best way its traditions function one of the best protection in opposition to Trump’s assaults. “We see it as essential that as many individuals as doable perceive how it’s that we work and what the rules are,” Harpviken advised us. “Whether or not these lobbying for the prize are receptive to that or not is absolutely past our management.”
Early on, the federal government in Oslo arguably used the prize as a device of overseas affect. It was awarded in 1906 to Theodore Roosevelt, “clearly a really political choice on the time,” Harpviken mentioned. The Norwegians had gained their independence from Sweden solely the yr earlier than, and so they needed to draw Roosevelt’s consideration and his assist in opposition to “their European rivals, significantly Sweden,” he mentioned.
Over the many years, because the status of the prize grew, the Nobel Committee developed safeguards in opposition to political affect. But it surely has not all the time stopped politicians from giving it a steer. One among them, in keeping with a former Nobel insider, was Støre. In 2010, when he was serving as Norway’s overseas minister, Støre allegedly approached the then-chair of the Nobel Committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, and defined the harm that Norway’s financial system would face from China if the prize have 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 advised us: “It is a vital precept that the Norwegian Nobel Committee stay unbiased and free. As I did already in 2010, I categorically reject this assertion. I’ve by no means achieved 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 reducing off diplomatic relations with Oslo for six years.
Most of the Nobel Committee’s choices have triggered worldwide outrage. The selection of Aung San Suu Kyi, a dissident in Myanmar who acquired the prize in 1991, started to look problematic when Aung got here to energy in 2016 and defended the genocide that the Burmese navy carried out in opposition to the Rohingya, an ethnic minority group.
Barack Obama received the 2009 prize lower than a yr into his presidential tenure. The speech he had delivered in Prague earlier that yr, 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 navy 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 current months, amid the strain from Trump and his supporters, Harpviken has spent lots of his time explaining the committee’s requirements of discretion and objectivity. All data 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, won’t affect the committee’s deliberations in any method. “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 which means 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 change 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 in opposition to NATO to the group of the world’s elites, saying, because the prime minister summarized the message, We give the whole lot to NATO, and we get nothing in return. The speech introduced purpose for some reduction, as a result of Trump dominated out using navy power to take Greenland. Hours later, he additionally backed off his risk of tariffs after a gathering with NATO Secretary Normal Mark Rutte. A working group involving senior officers from the U.S., Denmark, and Greenland is now looking for a compromise that would permit an expanded U.S. navy presence on Greenland.
However Trump’s underlying message concerning the dynamics inside NATO was unsuitable, Støre mentioned. NATO nations, together with the US, profit enormously from Norway’s navy 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 advised us, feeding again data on the place Russia is shifting its submarines and the way it exams its weaponry. “100 kilometers from that border you’ve got the Russian nuclear-strike capability,” Støre mentioned. “And as I inform my American interlocutors, it’s not primarily instantly in opposition to me, however in opposition to 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 truth been at peace with Russia for a thousand years,” Støre mentioned, noting that his nation is considered one 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 advised us that he shared with the president when he visited the White Home final April. Washington, he mentioned, nonetheless has a significant function to play: “It’s solely the would possibly of America that may deliver 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 advised Europe’s governments on the 2025 Munich convention that they pose a better risk to their very own societies than Russia or China do. We spoke simply earlier than Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed this yr’s convention, padding the administration’s criticism of Europe with a softer tone. “In a time the place politics might get tough within the dialogue, as in J.D. Vance’s speech right here final yr and President Trump’s speech in Davos, there’s some stability on this defense-intelligence layer,” Støre advised us.
As for his textual content change with Trump, he mentioned, “I might merely, you realize, 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 recognize that.”
