No Nobel Peace Prize For Donald Trump Despite His Promises On North Korea

President Donald Trump has not won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, despite speculation that he could be in the running because of negotiations with North Korea. Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un were the bookies’ favorites to win the prestigious prize.

The Nobel Prize was awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, campaigners against the use of rape as a weapon of war. Mukwege and Murad have worked to end sexual violence in war zones, campaigned against sex slavery and torture and worked with thousands of women who suffered from war-related sexual assault.

Trump was hotly tipped to win this year’s prize for his recent negotiations with North Korea. Even Kim Jong-un, whose regime imprisons, tortures and executes innocent people, was in the running. Some commentators believed that the prize would go to South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in for his work on improving relations on the peninsula.

However, Trump has exaggerated his success with North Korea. Despite claiming that he and Kim ‘fell in love‘ while exchanging letters and promises to ‘de-nuclearize’ the Korean peninsula, the Trump administration has, in reality, achieved little.

The Trump administration was widely criticized for handing Kim Jong-un an easy win and helping the North Korean dictatorship to normalize its relationship with the rest of the world. Trump, however, sold the limited improvement in relations as a big win, though it was not enough to win Nobel recognition.

The awarding committee said they had chosen the winners to highlight women who are ‘used as weapons of war’. This is particularly timely in the era of #MeToo and given President Trump’s recent mockery of a sexual assault survivor, Dr Christine Blasey Ford. Several US presidents have won Peace Prizes, including Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.