The Inaugural FIFA Peace Laureate

Donald Trump gets his prize.

December 9-10: Join Senators Mark Kelly and Peter Welch, Ambassador John Bolton, and FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff in DC

At The Next Move, we argue, we disagree, but we share a fundamental cause: Strengthening democracy and putting the authoritarians on the back foot.

We’re inviting you to continue the conversation in person from December 9-10, 2025 as the Renew Democracy Initiative, publisher of The Next Move, hosts our third annual Frontlines of Freedom Conference (FOFCON) right in the heart of the action in Washington, DC. This year, we’re pleased to announce a star-studded roster of speakers including US Senators Mark Kelly and Peter Welch, along with Ambassador John Bolton, and FIRE’s Greg Lukianoff.

Few seats remain, so don’t wait to sign up. We hope you’ll join us!

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Jay Nordlinger is a senior resident fellow at the Renew Democracy Initiative and a contributor at The Next Move. He is the author of Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World.

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For most of this year, Donald Trump waged a campaign to get the Nobel Peace Prize. Never before had there been such an open and brazen campaign for the prize. It went, however, to María Corina Machado, the preeminent leader of the Venezuelan democracy movement.

Many press reports say that Trump was “snubbed” by the relevant Nobel committee. Is that the right word? Is every non-winner “snubbed”? I, personally, have long wanted the Ladies in White (Cuba) to win the prize, or the White Helmets (Syria). Have my favorites been “snubbed”?

In any case, Trump was clearly bruised and piqued by his non-win, and FIFA has now offered him a balm. This organization—which governs soccer worldwide—created the FIFA Peace Prize and awarded it to Trump.

Will it be an annual prize—a regularly occurring prize—or is this just a one-off? An attempt to console and curry favor with the American president? I suppose we’ll see.

FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, is an ardent supporter of Trump’s, and had pushed him for the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Associated Press, Infantino “has been a frequent visitor to the Oval Office” and “had a prime seat at Trump’s January inauguration.” For good measure, “FIFA has established an office at Trump Tower in Manhattan.”

A shrewd play.

According to the New York Times,

Mr. Infantino’s trips to the White House often end with his leaving a gift. During an August visit, he showed off a replica of the men’s World Cup trophy. Mr. Trump praised the “beautiful piece of gold,” then asked to keep it.

I will return to the FIFA Peace Prize in due course. First, I would like to explore some Nobel history (and if you would like a book-length exploration, try my Peace, They Say: A History of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Most Famous and Controversial Prize in the World).

The Nazis, irked at the peace committee, created their own prizes. The Soviets, under Stalin, were similarly irked—and created their own peace prize. Chinese Communists did the same.

Let me preempt, if I can, a criticism: Am I comparing this FIFA-Trump thing to the Nazis, the Soviets, or the ChiComs? No. I am saying that it rang some historical bells for me. You may hear them too.

The Nobel Peace Prize for 1935 went to a political prisoner of the Nazis: Carl von Ossietzky, a journalist and pacifist. The Nazis were affronted. They forbade German citizens to accept any Nobel prize and created their own prizes—alternative prizes, if you will.

Two of the Nobel committees gave prizes to Germans anyway (scientific prizes). These winners were able to accept those awards after the war, and the downfall of the Third Reich.

Josef Stalin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice—in 1945 and 1948. The committee “snubbed” him. Not used to being snubbed, Stalin created, or approved the creation of, the Stalin Peace Prize, known formally as the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace among Peoples.

When the Kremlin was de-Stalinizing, the name of the prize was changed to the Lenin Peace Prize (or the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace among Peoples).

Many luminaries won the prize, whichever ruler it was named after. Among the laureates are Paul Robeson, Howard Fast, Fidel Castro, and Angela Davis.

It was in 1954 that Fast (a popular American novelist) won. The prize was still named after Stalin, though he had died the year before. At the ceremony, Fast lamented that neither the prize nor “the name it bears” was “greatly honored by the men who govern my country.”

He further said, “If I had no other cause for honoring the Soviet Union, I would honor it greatly and profoundly for giving prizes for peace.”

The Kremlin had multitudes of supporters, fellow travelers, and apologists in the Free World then. It does now.

In 2010, the Nobel peace committee gave its prize to a Chinese political prisoner: Liu Xiabo, one of the noblest men of our age. The Chinese government blew a gasket, and a group in China created the Confucius Peace Prize.

There is some debate over whether the prize (now defunct) was official or unofficial. Did it have the blessing of the government or not? At a minimum, we can say that there is little independent action in that totalitarian state.

Among the first winners of the Confucius Peace Prize was Vladimir Putin. Other dictators were to follow: Fidel Castro (yet another peace prize for him), Robert Mugabe, and Hun Sen. That is a murderers’ row, literally.

Back, now, to contemporary America. The administration and its allies are very eager to promote Trump as a peace president. Earlier this year, the administration gutted the U.S. Institute of Peace. As a Times report says, it even “dismantled a fixture inside with the institute’s name and logo, a depiction of a dove and an olive branch.”

But last Wednesday, the State Department had an announcement to make:

This morning, the State Department renamed the former Institute of Peace to reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history.

Welcome to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. The best is yet to come.

Try to remember, the U.S. State Department is supposed to represent all of us Americans, and America to the world. Yet it acts like an arm of the Republican National Committee.

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, weighed in with this:

President Trump will be remembered by history as the President of Peace. It’s time our State Department display that.

Day by day, the administration gets more North Korean.

On Friday at the Kennedy Center—which Trump is now calling the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” although unofficially, so far—Gianni Infantino conferred on the president the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize. Said Trump, “This is truly one of the great honors of my life.”

As the FIFA peace laureate, Trump received three items: a medal, a gold trophy, and a certificate. Nobel peace laureates also receive three items: a medal, a certificate, and, well—cash.

Press reports are unclear on whether the FIFA prize comes with cash. But not to worry: Mr. Trump and his family have done pretty well out of the presidency, when it comes to cash. The FIFA Peace Prize has its comical aspect. But what a humiliation, for the United States of America.

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