Despite railing against the United Nations while chasing a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump exposes the flaws of UN veto power more than the irrelevance he claims

Even allowing for his hyperbolic style, US President Donald Trump is not the peacemaker he boasted in his UN General Assembly speech last week nor is the UN as ineffective in its pursuit of peace, or guilty of facilitating the invasion of Europe and America by immigrants, he claimed. 

Having previously, on September 18, 2025, vetoed a UN Security Council (UNSC) ceasefire resolution on Gaza for the sixth time, it was a bit rich of Trump to claim from the podium of the UN General Assembly that the UN is ineffective.

The UN has been ineffective because the veto powers accorded to its five permanent members in the Security Council have been misused. The UN needs a broader range of permanent members and qualified majority voting instead of the right of the permanent members – US, Russia, China, Britain and France – to unilaterally block peace resolutions in the UNSG.

Moreover, it is no longer desirable for the UN HQ to be based in New York. Trump’s decision to bar the Palestinian delegation requires the UN to consider relocating to a more neutral country. Dublin in Ireland is famously neutral and the Irish would never dream of excluding the Palestinian leaders from attending UN gatherings.

Membership of the UN requires good faith by states in their obligations to comply with the UN Charter. The US bar of the Palestinians showed lack of good faith with the procedures under the Charter and the 1947 UN HQ Agreement that requires the US to allow representatives of member states — the Palestinians have UN observer status that entitles them to attend.

The UNSG has primary responsibility for maintenance of international peace and security and member states agree to carry out its decisions and have available military contingents for the purpose.  It can authorise the use of force to restore peace and security or use of UN military contingents provided by member states for military or peacekeeping operations.

The point here is that the UN Charter is a fine document save for the need to broaden the composition of the permanent members and the need for qualified majority voting in place of the current state of affairs that paralyses the UNSC.

For now, the world must live with a maverick US president who exaggerates his achievements while craving a Nobel Peace Prize.

He is better than a trigger-happy cowboy president with no qualms about invading and destabilising foreign lands. Importantly, it is also a bonus that this US president has a burning desire to be awarded the Nobel peace prize and as his motivation is irrelevant it can only be good for the cause of international peace. 

Nominations for Nobel prizes must be in by January 31 of any year and awards are announced by the Norwegian Nobel committee in October for peace achievements before the January 31st deadline.

Trump’s obsession with being awarded the Nobel peace prize this October is probably because he needs to match President Barack Obama’s 2009 reward. Obama became president on January, 20, 2009 and was awarded the Nobel peace prize in October 2009 for his achievements between January 20 and 31, 2009. It seems he was awarded the prize for who he was rather than his achievements in the cause of peace; or as the Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland put it, he was not awarded the prize for what he might do in the future but his potential for promoting peace — a distinction without a difference.

The names of nominators are confidential but they are free to disclose the fact themselves. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disclosed last July that he had nominated Trump, but for what exactly?

Trump could claim that he was instrumental in bringing about the ceasefire in Gaza from January 15–March 17, 2025 but then put his foot in it by suggesting relocating the Palestinians of Gaza and turning it into the Riviera of the Middle East. What on earth was he thinking mouthing such an anti-Nobel idea? It emboldened the Israelis to bring the ceasefire to an end and continue the destruction of Gaza which is still going on unimpeded.

For most people with no dog in the fight between Israel and Palestine except a humanitarian hound that howls when one side or the other commits crimes against humanity, an immediate ceasefire from the UNSG has been a long time coming as indeed has the release of the Israeli hostages – why doesn’t Hamas just let them go!?

Until now Trump has been hoping to bring Russia in from the cold with peace in Ukraine which could have won him the Nobel peace prize despite his anti-Nobel blunder in Gaza. But he has ran out of time for this October’s Nobel announcement. Alas, President Putin of Russia is not that easy to persuade; he could not care less about a prize funded by the estate of a Norwegian-Swedish arms manufacturer.

Trump loves flattery and a Nobel would flatter. But someone should remind him that, despite his derision, the UN and its agencies have already earned the peace prize many times – something no amount of grandstanding can erase.