Announcement from Oslo makes President Donald Trump the biggest loser

By James J. Devine

In a world that often feels turned upside down, the announcement from Oslo this week has managed to both honor a beacon of democratic hope and illuminate the bruised ego of the world’s most powerful man.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, in its inscrutable wisdom, has awarded the 2025 Peace Prize to María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who currently directs her fight for freedom from an undisclosed hiding place.

The committee praised her for keeping “the flame of democracy burning,” a flame her own government has tried desperately to extinguish.

Meanwhile, from the White House came not congratulations, but the sound of a sulk. President Donald Trump, who has made no secret of his desire for the prize, saw the accolade go instead to a woman barred from office and hunted by her own state.

The administration’s response was a masterclass in pique.

“The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace,” declared White House spokesman Steven Cheung, adding that President Trump “will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives.”

It is a curious thing to witness a president, commander of armies and shaper of global events, so openly yearning for a gold medal from Scandinavia.

The desire is not new, of course.

He was nominated in the past for brokering the Abraham Accords, and just this year, the accused war criminal Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proudly presented him with a copy of his nomination letter.

Yet the prize has remained elusive, a fact that seems to grate more with each passing year.

The contrast between the two figures at the center of this drama could not be more stark.

On one hand, a leader with the full force of the American military at his command, who recently oversaw “Operation Midnight Hammer,” a coordinated strike with Israel that bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

On the other, a political engineer, a mother, who rallied her people to a historic electoral victory only to be forced into the shadows, her allies jailed, her victory stolen by a regime that refuses to yield.

The committee’s choice seems a deliberate statement on the nature of peace itself. Is it merely the absence of war, a silence enforced by bunker-buster bombs?

Or is it the presence of justice, the stubborn, courageous work of building a society where people can choose their own leaders? In honoring Machado, the committee argued for the latter, declaring that “democracy is a precondition for lasting peace.”

So, as the world digests this decision, we are left with a poignant image: a hidden woman, her location a secret, her voice amplified by the world’s most famous award, and a powerful president, his location never in doubt, left to complain that the honor was not his.

It seems that in the economy of global admiration, even the most powerful man can find himself feeling poor.

And as for the rest of us, we are left to ponder what truly makes for peace in our troubled times, and whether it is ever found by those who demand it for themselves.

“The woke Nobel Committee gave Obama a peace prize for doing nothing,” said Sen. John Barrasso in a social media post. “They wouldn’t know peace if it stared them in the face.”

Is that the approach of someone earnest, or are those just fighting words?