For months we have witnessed politicians and prominent individuals aroundthe globe debase themselves as they heap false praise on President Donald Trump. A common theme in these spectacles has been the repeated claim that Trump is some great peacemaker, a visionary statesman whose mere presence bends the world toward harmony.
According to this fantasy, he is owed the Nobel Peace Prize—along with whatever other trophies can be hastily assembled—for his supposed contributions to global stability. The result has been a parade of sycophancy so over-the-top and so disconnected from material reality that even seasoned observers of U.S. imperialism find themselves blinking in disbelief.
Take Trump’s visit to the Israeli Knesset. In a display that bordered on performance art, speaker after speaker rose to declare that Trump had been “robbed” of the Nobel Prize he allegedly deserved for “ending” Israel’s invasion of Gaza. No mention was made of ongoing violence, ongoing sieges, ongoing displacement—only a celebration of a fragile ceasefire. The ceremony was a masterclass in ego-soothing.
Nor was Israel alone in this effort. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced that his government was nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for supposedly ending the border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand.
Domestically, Republicans in Congress followed suit. Sen. Bill Cassidy declared Trump “deserving” of the famed peace prize, speaking as if the title alone might elevate his talking points into reality. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna went further, officially nominating Trump for the prize. The nomination had no grounding in actual conflict resolution, but it garnered brownie points with the MAGA leader in the White House.
Then there was one of the most ridiculous and embarrassing episodes of all: FIFA. The international football organization, better known for corruption scandals than contributions to peace, invented a brand-new “peace award” and bestowed it upon Trump. In a televised extravaganza befitting a reality show, the head of FIFA handed Trump a trophy and a medal, as though global conflict were a halftime show in need of promotional content. If the Nobel Committee wouldn’t comply, FIFA would simply make up its own award. After all, nothing says “international peace” like a photo-op staged by one of the most scandal-ridden organizations on earth.
But despite these repeated declarations—most of them shallow, many of them humiliating, all of them politically calculated—Trump has done little, if anything, to promote or spread peace. The real world has a way of shredding propaganda, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the very conflicts Trump’s supporters claim he ended.
Just this week, Thailand and Cambodia returned to open conflict. Over 500,000 people have already been displaced as the Thai air force bombed Cambodian territory and Cambodian ground forces attacked Thai military units. So much for the “historic peace agreement” supposedly brokered by Trump. The conflict resumed not because the region is inherently unstable, but because the original claims of peace were always hollow—a diplomatic mirage.
In Palestine, the violence and speed of the genocide in Gaza may have dipped relative to the peak of the assault, but it continues nonetheless. Meanwhile, Israel’s program of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank has accelerated, with settlement expansion and displacement intensifying under Trump’s watch. Israel also refuses to withdraw from any of the Syrian territory it seized after the fall of the Assad government, continuing to bomb both Syria and Lebanon with near-total impunity. These are not the hallmarks of peace but of a regional war machine operating with Washington’s blessing.
Beyond Palestine, the supposed peace agreements Trump is credited with brokering have dissolved on contact with reality. And while these fictions are crumbling abroad, Trump has made clear his appetite for new conflicts, especially in Latin America. His Department of War has escalated attacks against Venezuela, stoking fears that the United States is preparing for a full-scale military intervention in the oil-rich South American country.
The rhetoric is familiar: a dictatorial regime threatening democracy, a humanitarian crisis demanding intervention (even though the main cause of the humanitarian crisis is U.S. imposed economic sanctions), a targeted nation coincidentally sitting atop vast natural resources. The pattern is so transparent that even U.S. newspapers of record have begun to ask whether Trump is engineering a war for his own gains.
The Trump regime has also threatened Nigeria with U.S. invasion. The stated motive is to “protect Christians from violence,” but the facts do not align with this declaration. Nigeria’s conflicts are complex, shaped by climate change, local politics, inequality, and the aftermath of colonial borders, not some civilizational clash constructed for Fox News soundbites. As with Venezuela, the subtext is obvious: access to natural resources, political leverage, and military expansion dressed up as moral crusade.
And if Trump’s policies abroad resemble those of an imperial warlord, his domestic actions reveal a leader eager to bring the tools of empire home. An increasingly militarized ICE has been given free rein to terrorize immigrants and U.S. citizens alike, operating as an occupying force within American communities. The U.S. military has been deployed in Washington, Portland, Los Angeles, and other cities, an unmistakable escalation in the state’s willingness to use military force for domestic political control. Trump is exporting war abroad while importing its machinery into the everyday life of the American people.
Trump is not merely “not a president of peace.” He is an outright warmonger whose administration views war—hot, cold, economic, and domestic—as a tool of governance. Yet world leaders continue to embarrass themselves as they compete for his approval, mistaking flattery for strategy and spectacle for diplomacy. Their obsequious praise tells us less about Trump than it does about the global political class’s willingness to bow before U.S. power, no matter how reckless the figure wielding it may be.
In the end, the real danger is not that Trump will receive the Nobel Peace Prize, but that so many leaders are willing to pretend he deserves it. Their applause is not harmless. It normalizes aggression, sanitizes imperialism, and disguises war as statesmanship.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views presented here are those of the author.
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