In a stunning illustration of how the rules-based order has gone for a toss, the US President Donald Trump recently told Norway’s PM, Jonas Gahr Støre, that he is not obligated to think for peace because he wasn’t awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The revelation came in the form of a leaked letter addressed to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, later circulated by US National Security Council staff to multiple European ambassadors in Washington.
NEW: @potus letter to @jonasgahrstore links @NobelPrize to Greenland, reiterates threats, and is forwarded by the NSC staff to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. I obtained the text from multiple officials:
— Nick Schifrin (@nickschifrin) January 19, 2026
Dear Ambassador:
President Trump has asked that the…
The message leaves little room for diplomatic ambiguity: Trump has linked his aggressive posture on Greenland directly to his personal grievance of being denied the Nobel Peace Prize.
“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace”
In the letter, Trump makes an extraordinary admission. Having failed to secure the Nobel Peace Prize, despite claiming credit for “ending 8 wars PLUS”, he declares that he is no longer bound by the moral restraint of “thinking purely of peace” and will now prioritise what he deems “good and proper for the United States of America”.
“Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” the letter reportedly stated.
Denmark’s sovereignty dismissed as historical inconvenience
Trump went on to directly challenge Denmark’s long-established sovereignty over Greenland, dismissing it as historically flimsy and strategically irrelevant.
“Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China,” Trump wrote, questioning why Copenhagen should have a “right of ownership” at all.
“There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also,” the letter goes on to read.
NATO as a one-way obligation
Trump’s letter also punctures the long-standing myth of NATO as a collective security alliance driven by shared values. Claiming that he has done “more for NATO than any other person since its founding”, Trump demanded that the alliance now “do something for the United States”.
He concluded with an unambiguous strategic ultimatum: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
In effect, Trump is asserting that global security is synonymous with American territorial dominance, an assertion that demolishes decades of Western moral posturing about sovereignty, consent, and international law.
Norway pushes back, but damage is done
Norwegian Prime Minister Støre responded by explaining, yet again, that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by an independent committee and not by the Norwegian government. He confirmed that Trump’s letter was sent in response to a conciliatory message jointly conveyed by himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb.
However, the very fact that the US President framed foreign policy threats around a personal award speaks volumes about the erosion of institutional diplomacy in the West.
Protests in Greenland, silence in Western capitals
Predictably, Trump’s rhetoric has triggered protests in Greenland, where demonstrators gathered outside the US consulate in Nuuk against what they see as American coercion and disregard for self-determination.
Yet, unlike the hysterical reactions routinely witnessed when non-Western nations assert strategic interests, Western political and media establishments have responded with remarkable restraint—exposing a clear double standard.
Nobel theatrics and moral collapse
Adding to the irony, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who recently presented her medal to Trump at the White House in a symbolic gesture. The Nobel Foundation was forced to intervene, clarifying that a Nobel Prize cannot be transferred, shared, or symbolically reassigned.
“The decision is final and stands for all time,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee reiterated, perhaps more to preserve its own credibility than to correct Trump.
