« Honestly, Norway is in trouble. In fact, Norway has become a shithole country« , said the American president, during a campaign rally in the state of Michigan.
He used a crude expression reminiscent of the one he had used in 2018 to refer to Haiti or certain African countries, such as Somalia, provoking an outcry.
The 2026 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the South African Navi Pillay for her career as a jurist, which saw her confront some of the worst atrocities, in Rwanda or the Middle East.
As last year, Donald Trump, who boasts in a fanciful way of having ended eight wars, expressed indignation at not having received the prestigious award. He spoke of an indelible stain on Norway, adding that the Nobel Peace Prize was discredited forever.
The statements were met with equanimity in Norway, a member of NATO.
« He knows very well that the Nobel Committee is independent of the government», reacted the Norwegian foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, on NRK, the public radio.
« Trump has a style that is his own. At the moment, he is moreover in the thick of a political campaign that may not be going very well for his party and he says a lot of things, but we are emphasizing our long-standing relations with the United States », he added.
On Sunday, at a rally that was nonetheless meant to focus on the midterm elections and notably the Senate race on November 3 in Michigan, Mr. Trump again attributed the recent social unrest in France to immigration.
He went on to say he was willing to accept migrants from certain countries but not from Norway, « because I have not won the Nobel Prize », he justified.
