FIFA may not have the political clout of the Nobel Committee, but Friday at Washington’s Kennedy Center, President Donald Trump’s efforts to promote peace finally received the recognition he deserved. During the draw ceremony for the 2026 World Cup, Trump was honored with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, an award recognizing his “exceptional and extraordinary actions” to promote global peace and unity.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino took the stage to present the gold medal and globe-shaped trophy bearing Trump’s name, telling him, “This is your prize, this is your peace prize.” Trump, in vintage form, placed the medal around his own neck, called it “one of the greatest honors of my life,” and credited his leadership for ending conflicts and saving “millions and millions of lives.”
The evening doubled as the official 2026 World Cup draw. Trump attended with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and the entertainment featured Kevin Hart, Heidi Klum, Tom Brady, Andrea Bocelli, and even the Village People.
On the red carpet, Trump laughed off the surprise. “I didn’t know I was getting it,” he told reporters. “I haven’t received any official notification,” he added, saying that his focus has always been saving lives, not getting accolades.
“I want to really save lives, not only prizes, I need to save lives,” Trump said. “I’m saving a lot of lives. I saved millions and millions of lives — and that’s really what I want to do.”
The award comes just weeks after he missed out on this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, which went to Venezuelan opposition leader Corina Yoris. FIFA’s new Peace Prize is meant to recognize global contributions to peace and unity through leadership. Infantino himself had previously supported Trump’s Nobel candidacy for his efforts in negotiating ceasefires in the Middle East, including the groundwork that led to expanded Abraham Accords-style agreements.
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The idea of Trump winning an international peace award is more than just poetic justice; it's long overdue. The Nobel Peace Prize has spent years turning into a political stunt for the left, a symbolic trophy for the global left. It used to mean something. Now it’s just a joke.
Take 2009, when the committee handed the Peace Prize to Barack Obama before he had even settled into the Oval Office. Geir Lundestad, the former secretary of the Nobel Prize committee, admitted in his 2015 memoir that the award “didn’t achieve what it had hoped for.”
Trump has never been shy about calling out that double standard. “If I were named Obama, I would have had the Nobel Prize given to me in 10 seconds,” he quipped last year, pointing to his achievements in the Middle East. He’s right. The Abraham Accords represented one of the most significant peace breakthroughs in a generation, signed without the endless wars or concessions that had defined previous administrations’ failures.
The Nobel Committee’s bias runs deep. Of the four American presidents who’ve received the Nobel Peace Prize, three were Democrats: Obama, Woodrow Wilson, and Jimmy Carter. The only Republican was Theodore Roosevelt. Even Ronald Reagan, whose diplomacy with Mikhail Gorbachev ended the Cold War, didn't receive a prize, while Gorbachev alone won.
The Nobel establishment may continue handing out prizes as political favors, but FIFA’s new Peace Prize has already accomplished something rare: It reminded the world that results, not ideology, measure peace.
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