Donald Trump referred to Norway as a "shithole country" during a rally held on Sunday in Port Huron, Michigan, angry for not having received the Nobel Peace Prize 2026.
"I don't want anyone from Norway. I don’t want to have anything to do with Norway. Frankly, Norway stinks. Norway has become a crappy country, actually," the U.S. president stated before his supporters.
Trump added that he preferred to receive immigrants from Denmark rather than Norway, justifying the distinction with a straightforward remark: "because I didn't win the Nobel Prize."
The award was granted on October 9 to the South African jurist Navanethem «Navi» Pillay, 85 years old, recognized for her career in the defense of human rights and international law.
Trump had already reacted strongly when the award was announced. On that occasion, he described the Nobel Committee's decision as "shameful" and claimed that the Nobel had been "discredited forever," while referring to Pillay's selection as an "indelible stain" for Norway.
At the same rally on Sunday, Trump claimed he deserved the award because he had "resolved eight wars" and had "two more on the way."
The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Espen Barth Eide, responded this Monday with institutional restraint, reminding that the Norwegian Nobel Committee operates with full independence from the Oslo Government.
"He knows very well that the Nobel Committee is independent. We have reminded him of this, in case anyone was wondering, and it remains so," Eide declared to the public broadcaster NRK.
The Committee is made up of five members appointed by the Norwegian Parliament and makes its decisions without intervention from the Executive, a distinction that Trump has systematically ignored while directing his criticisms at the country as a whole.
The episode contains a notable historical irony. In January 2018, Trump used the same term — "shithole countries" — to refer to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations, and on that occasion, he asked why more immigrants were not coming from Norway, which he then presented as a desirable model. Eight years later, the situation is entirely reversed.
Navi Pillay won the Nobel Peace Prize 2026 after a career that includes the presidency of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda —where sexual violence was judicially recognized as a weapon of genocide— and the position of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014.
Upon receiving the award in Nuremberg, Pillay joked that he might share it with Trump if the audience applauded a bit more.
The statements on Sunday came amid the campaign for the U.S. midterm legislative elections scheduled for November 3, 2026, which adds a clear electoral mobilization component to the presidential outburst.
The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is scheduled for December 10 in Oslo, with a prize amount of 12 million Swedish crowns.
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