OSLO, Norway — President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway that he no longer felt obliged to “think purely of Peace” after not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, as he again demanded United States control of Greenland, according to a text message confirmed by U.S. media and Norwegian officials.
The message, obtained by U.S. outlets and confirmed by CBS News, the BBC’s U.S. partner, was sent in response to a text Prime Minister Støre said he and President Alexander Stubb of Finland had sent to Trump.
Mr Trump blamed Norway for his not receiving the prize and wrote, “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 US”.
He added: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”
Mr Støre said he received the message on Sunday, January 18, 2026, after he and Mr Stubb contacted Mr Trump to oppose proposed tariff increases linked to the Greenland dispute and to urge de-escalation, including by proposing a three-way phone call the same day.
Nobel Prize Dispute Raised in Messages
In his reply, Mr Støre said he told Mr Trump that the award was not decided by Norway’s government.
He explained that an independent committee, not the government, had awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October to Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado.
Trump has publicly expressed a desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Greenland Demand and Tariff Threats
Mr. Trump has repeatedly insisted that the United States needs to take over Greenland for national security reasons, describing the Arctic island as strategically positioned for early warning systems in the event of missile attacks and for monitoring vessels in the region. The territory is sparsely populated and resource rich.
Trump has reiterated his wish for the United States to buy Greenland and has not ruled out using military force against a member of the NATO alliance.
Over the weekend, he said he would impose a 10 percent tariff on goods from eight NATO allies starting in February if they oppose his proposed takeover, and threatened to raise the tariff to 25 percent by June.
In his message to Støre, Trump argued that Denmark could not protect Greenland from Russia or China and questioned Denmark’s claim of sovereignty.
“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,” he wrote.
He concluded, “I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States.”
European Response and NATO Meetings
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said on Monday that decisions about Greenland’s future status “belongs to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone” and called the use of tariffs against allies “wrong.”
Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Greenlandic Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Motzfeldt are due to meet on Monday with NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte.
Last week, the Danish and Greenlandic governments, alongside NATO allies, agreed to increase military presence and exercise activity in the Arctic and the North Atlantic.
Several European states also sent small numbers of military personnel to Greenland in what was described as a reconnaissance mission.
White House Statement on Violence
Trump has said he has stopped eight wars since beginning his second term last year.
The White House has previously identified those conflicts as involving Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Pakistan and India, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Serbia and Kosovo.
BBC Verify reported that some of the conflicts described by Mr Trump lasted only days, and that in some cases there was no fighting to end.
Separately, the White House has defended military action in Nigeria.
After airstrikes launched on Christmas Day, a White House spokeswoman said in a statement that “the massacre of Christians by radical, terrorist scum will not be tolerated.”
Nobel Medal Controversy
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Ms Machado, who met Mr Trump at the White House last week and gave her medal to him.
The Nobel Foundation said the award could not “even symbolically, be passed on or further distributed.”
Later, after U.S. forces seized and removed Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, from Caracas, accusing him of drug trafficking and other crimes, Mr. Trump did not endorse Ms. Machado as the country’s next leader and instead backed Mr. Maduro’s vice-president as interim head of government.
