Trump is hardly the first con man in the White House, but he is by far the most flagrant, and his scale is gargantuan. He’s also rather inept. His latest confession came in a recent message to Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store:
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.
I’ve italicized confession. Here is Trump admitting that, in his quest for the Nobel Peace Prize, he prioritized something over “what is good and proper for the United States of America.” In year two of his second term, that will change, he warns.
What did he put ahead of America’s interest? Peace. There’s another confession.
You hear that, MAGA? You got that, America Firsters? Your Dear Leader acknowledges that he has not been an America Firster at all, but a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump Firster. His goal wasn’t to Make America Great Again, but to make his White House or Mar-a-Lago mantelpiece great.
Alas, the Nobel committee gave the prize to Venezuela’s opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, a deserving recipient. Having lost the prize, presumably out of Norwegian spite, Trump has now reduced the cause of peace to merely one of several concerns.
So much is wrong with what Trump wrote to Store. First, Trump has not been thinking “purely of peace” since Jan. 20, 2025—far from it. He’s aided and abetted Israel in its savage battering of the people of the Gaza Strip. His touted ceasefire, which Israel has violated over a thousand times, is a farce. He, along with Israel, attacked Iran while pretending to negotiate with its diplomats. His conduct regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine hardly speaks of a person who thinks purely of peace. He invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Maduro. He has bombed boats and executed their crews in the Caribbean. He’s bombed Somalia repeatedly, along with several other countries, including Syria. I’m sure I’ve missed some things.
Don’t get me wrong. Trump does not lie. Lying implies one knows the truth and says something else. In contrast, he seems sincerely to believe, or hope, that what he says will shape reality. How can you be lying if your words create the facts? He’s the ultimate primacy-of-consciousness subjectivist. As I observed in Trump’s first term, the only way to shut him up is to inject him with sodium pentathol, i.e., truth serum.
One may wonder why Trump complained to the Norwegian prime minister. He doesn’t pick the Peace Prize winner. Greenland, over which Trump had threatened tariffs against Western Europe, is a territory of Denmark, not Norway (as Trump acknowledged further on). And what does Greenland have to do with the Nobel Peace Prize? At any rate, not winning the prize hardly justified Trump’s damaging tantrum, after which he claimed he did not care about the prize, classic sour grapes. Isn’t it time he grew up?
Notwithstanding his embarrassing bluster at Davos over Greenland—which he several times called Iceland; could he have meant Graceland?—Trump (for now) has backed down. Europe and the stock market pushed back, and Trump again caved. He says he won’t use force. He’s cancelled the tariffs, and he claims, vaguely, that he and NATO have worked out a “framework of a future deal” for Arctic security. The top man at NATO says the sovereignty of Greenland, which Trump had insisted was absolutely necessary, was no part of the post-speech discussions.
In other words, Trump antagonized friendly nations and shook the world economy—then settled for the status quo. An open-ended security arrangement with NATO and Denmark has existed in treaty form since 1951! Did no one tell Trump? It must have been a blow to his ego. If he thinks he’s saved face, he’s pathetically mistaken. He looks like a damned fool, and everybody knows it.
Trump’s monomaniacal quest for adoration and gratitude is so warped that he seems oblivious to the harm he does. Noninterventionist libertarians have opposed U.S. membership in NATO since its founding in 1949 because a strictly limited government would not obligate its taxpayers or military to defend other countries. Preparation for war is the health of the state. It’s also provocative. So the U.S. should leave NATO. However, gracefully leaving an alliance and nihilistically smashing it on the way out are two different things. While Trump clearly has no intention of leaving NATO, he seems intent on wreaking havoc anyway.
In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson cautioned against “entangling alliances.” That was good advice. But Trump is showing that things could be worse than the current alliance system. Presidential pugnacity toward people who bear us no ill will is bad for them and us. Jefferson also called for “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations.” Trump must have missed part.
