Donald Trump may be persuaded that the Nobel peace prize he covets will “become a genuine possibility” if he succeeds in bullying Ukraine “into accepting the unacceptable” (Editorial, 11 August). But the idea that this deluded and most undiplomatic and unpeaceful of US presidents could ever join such recipients as Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King Jr is ludicrous.
Alfred Nobel intended the prize in the first instance for efforts for “the abolition or reduction of standing armies”. Under Trump, the already bloated Pentagon budget has skyrocketed; in June he celebrated the US army’s 250th birthday (as well as his own birthday) with a military parade, complete with tanks, missiles, and aeroplanes overhead; in February, he signed an executive order to dismantle the US Institute of Peace, resulting in the unlawful firing of its president and board members.
Nobel also mentioned in his will efforts to promote “fraternity between nations”. Trump’s Maga programme is at the expense of other nations, causing anger and anxiety in Canada, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland and elsewhere. He is complicit in the destruction of the Palestinian nation and the continuing devastation of Ukraine. The fact that he has been nominated is of little consequence (Hitler was too) and reflects poorly on the nominators.
Dr Peter van den Dungen
Visiting fellow, Norwegian Nobel Institute, 2000
Might the inclusion of Mar-a-Lago in the territories to be ceded to Russia get the Trump-Putin deal over the line (No deal, and no answers, after brief Trump-Putin talks on Ukraine in Alaska, 14 August)?
Malcolm Rush
Peterborough