US President Donald Trump has expressed regret at being passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying he helped India and Pakistan disengage from a military conflict last year, which makes him deserving of the illustrious award.
During a meeting in the White House on Friday with top oil and gas companies’ executives to discuss plans for the Venezuelan oil reserves, Trump said “no one in history is more deserving” than him of the Nobel Peace Prize, and reiterated his claim that eight fighter jets were shot down during the India-Pakistan conflict, but did not mention which country these belonged to.
“Look whether people like Trump or don’t like Trump, I settled eight wars, big ones. Some going on for 36 years, 32 years, 31 years, 28 years, 25 years, some just getting ready to start like India and Pakistan, where already eight jets were shot out of the air,” he said.
The US president also said that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who had visited the White House last year, credited him for saving millions of lives by stopping the conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
India and Pakistan were engaged in a four-day military conflict in May, 2025, after India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, following the deadly massacre of 26 people killed in Kashmir’s Pahalgam by terrorists. The two countries then reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict.
While India has consistently denied any third-party intervention, Trump has been persistent about claims that he threatened the two countries of ramping-up tariffs on their products and barring trade with them if they didn’t de-escalate tensions, following which the two agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire.
Only a day earlier, the President had said again in a TV interview, that he stopped the war between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear powers “ready to go at it big”.
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Rebuking former US President Barack Obama for getting the Nobel Peace Prize shortly after assuming office in 2009 even though he “didn’t do anything”, Trump said: “I can’t think of anybody in history that should get the Nobel Prize more than me and I don’t want to be bragging, but nobody else settled wars. Obama got the Nobel Prize. He had no idea why. He still has no idea. He walks around, he says, ‘I got the Nobel Prize’. Why did he get a Nobel Prize? He got it almost immediately upon attaining office, and he didn’t do anything, and he was a bad president.”
In fact, the US President said, one should get a Nobel Prize for every war stopped by them. “These were major wars. These were wars that nobody thought could be stopped,” he said.
Trump claimed that Russian President, Vladimir Putin, too marvelled at him for trying to stop two of the wars being waged for 10 years.
“He couldn't believe it. So in theory, you should get the Nobel Prize for every war you stopped. Every one of them was major. But I don’t care about that. What I care about is saving lives. I’ve saved tens of millions of lives,” Trump said.
When asked about Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado, who dedicated her Nobel Peace Prize last year to him, Trump said Machado will be coming to Washington next week to “pay her regards to our country, really to me, but you know I’m a representative of the country, nothing else, and she’s coming in sometime next week”.
Referring to Machado’s offer to give her Nobel Prize to him when the Oslo-based Nobel committee did not honour him last year, Trump said “Norway is very embarrassed by what took place,” adding that the Nordic country “is getting decimated” by Machado’s impending visit.
“But I’m honoured that she’s coming here. I look forward to meeting her,” he said.
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