Donald Trump suggested he would have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize had he been elected U.S. president as Barack Obama. Trump campaigned in Detroit, Michigan, on Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club, where he compared himself to his predecessor over the accolade. Former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama (Photos: Getty Images) “If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,” Trump said. “He got the Nobel Prize. He didn’t even know what the hell he got it for. Remember, he got elected. Well, so did I. He got elected, and they announced he was getting the Nobel Prize. He got the Nobel Prize for doing nothing, for getting elected, but I got elected too.” Trump purported that Obama only received the prize “for getting elected.” The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the prize in 2009 “for extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” less than a year into his first presidential term. “Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened,” the committee said in a 2009 statement. However, the award did draw criticism. After inheriting fraught international tensions marred by war between the West and the Middle East, the committee said Obama sought to ease those tensions by making good on a campaign promise to withdraw U.S. troops occupying Iraq. However, the troop withdrawal agreement was negotiated by Bush and signed before Obama took office in 2009. Yet, in 2011, the U.S. and Iraq sought to negotiate a new agreement that would leave a residual American force in place to help Iraq address ongoing security challenges. However, negotiations broke down in October of that year, according to the Washington Post. A few months later, on Dec. 15, 2011, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Baghdad to officially mark the end of the U.S. mission by lowering the flag. The committee also states that “even before the election, Obama had advocated dialogue and cooperation across national, ethnic, religious and political dividing lines.” Obama was the third African-American to win the Nobel Peace Prize behind the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Bunche. Trump boasted that he should have been awarded the prize for the Abraham Accords, the bilateral agreements that were established to further diplomatic relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. The accords were signed in 2020 at the White House during a ceremony hosted by Trump’s administration. “We did something, the Abraham Accords, unprecedented, nobody thought it was possible. If it was anybody else — liberal, Democrat — they would have had it before the damned thing was even signed,” Trump stated. “I’m not politicking for it. I’m just saying there’s a lot of unfairness in this world.” Obama lives rent-free in his head. Obama is a real leader. Trump is always whining.— Ron (Fan) (@Ronxyz00) October 10, 2024 “He’s so jealous of that Nobel Prize… it’s driving him crazy…,” one X user commented. “Ex Presidents don’t get Nobel prizes if they are charged with trying to overthrow the very government they swore to protect and especially ex Presidents who are convicted felons, adjudicated rapists, convicted of fraud , etc – need i go on?” another person added. ‘He’s So Jealous’: Donald Trump ‘Whines’ About Barack Obama’s Nobel Prize, Says He’s More Deserving, Drawing Reactions