In a message posted overnight, President Donald Trump said that the reason he wants to take Greenland has to do with Norway not giving him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nobel Prizes are given for actions done in the previous year and Trump wasn't even in office in 2024.
PBS "News Hour" foreign affairs reporter Nick Schifrin posted the letter text, reading, "Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a 'right of ownership' anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also."
Trump went on to say that he's done more for NATO than any other president.
The status update was then shared by international relations Professor Nicholas Grossman, from the University of Illinois.
"Multi-layered 'look what you made me do' lie," Grossman said. "Because Norway didn’t give a him prize (it doesn’t decide winners) for ending wars (he didn’t end) the US won’t be peaceful anymore (bombing multiple countries) and will take Greenland (part of Denmark, not Norway) to stop Russia (it’d help Russia)."
Lawyer, journalist and podcaster Imani Gandy demanded, "someone ask him to list the 8 wars he's stopped." She also lamented, "everything is just absurd. 10 years of this a--hole is 10 years too many."
Anesthesiologist Dr. Josh Rubin pointed out that Norway not only doesn't give out the peace prize, it doesn't own Greenland either.
"So he doesn’t know the difference between Norway and Denmark," he wrote on BlueSky.
Democratic influencer Harry Sisson called the matter "insane."
"Trump just wrote a letter to the prime minister of Norway essentially saying 'you didn’t give me the Nobel Peace Prize so I’m choosing to invade Greenland because of it.' This is INSANE. It’s about to get a lot worse," he expects.
Norwegian Helsinki Committee human rights worker Aage Borchgrevink threatened, "Dear Trump. Here’s a deal. Back off from Greenland and Norway will not destroy your economy by unloading the 180bn usd of your debt owned by the Norwegian Oil Fund."
Lawyer and commentator David Lurie joked, "Little known fact, Hitler invaded Poland because he didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. Will Norway ever learn?"
However, Dmitry Grozoubinski, negotiations and trade policy expert, wrote on BlueSky, "I'm honestly less mad at the President, who is clearly not well, that I am at his outriders and enablers. They see messages like this and then, with straight faces, go on television or write op-eds retroactively constructing grand strategy justifications. Pathetic."