Trump has a new battle on his hands to win Nobel Prize

Ending a war in 24 hours is tricky — as self-proclaimed peacemaker Donald Trump is discovering. Even four months isn't a long time when the conflict you've offered to help resolve involves a maniacal head of a nuclear-armed, mafia state determined to take over a plucky democratic neighbour.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky's refusal to wave a white flag presents a serious obstacle not only to Trump's peace plans, but more importantly to his hopes of a Nobel Prize — an award that the narcissist in the Oval Office desperately wants and thinks he deserves.

For Trump, the global gong would be the ultimate recognition. It would make him only the fifth US president to ever win one. His nemesis, Barack Obama, had been in power for less than eight months when he was awarded his, in 2009; his acceptance speech came days after he had sent an additional 30,000 US troops into Afghanistan and launched drone attacks on Pakistan, all part of his expansion of the War on Terror.

In Trump's bid to be the one to bring peace to Ukraine and Russia, he has a rival. There is now another US citizen of the world in the running. Step forward, Pope Leo XIV. There are already signs that Leo wants to use his new-found global influence in conflict resolution. This week, it emerged that the Pope has told Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni of his desire for the Vatican to host the next round of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

During his first speech, at his inauguration Mass, he called for peace in three war-torn regions: Gaza, Myanmar and Ukraine, which "awaits negotiations for a fair and lasting peace" — not a short-lived, shabby ceasefire. The first North American pontiff has at least nationality in common with the US president. But their CVs reveal somewhat different life choices. Leo has spent decades as an Augustinian priest, helping people; Trump, less so. Pope Francis had been nominated for this year's peace prize before his death last month — but the award is never given posthumously. Might the Nobel Committee be persuaded to offer it to the position of Pope, or the institution of the Papacy as a whole, rather than the man himself?

It is quite possible the well of credit built up by his predecessor may aid the Vatican's chances of being recognised by the committee. After helping revive relations between the US and Cuba, Francis worked hard to build dialogue between Iran and the West, and in 2015 oversaw the Holy See's historic first treaty with Palestine, which recognised it as a state. Leo's willingness to use his authority as the world's most powerful religious leader to push for a meaningful peace in Ukraine appears in stark contrast to Trump's cynicism. This week, the US president ignored Europe's push for new sanctions on Moscow in his eagerness to win new business deals with Putin and weaken China's hold on the Kremlin. Perhaps Trump thinks the election of a US Pope can work in his favour; maybe some of that Papal peace stuff might rub off on him? He wasted no time in parading Leo's Maga-supporting brother, Louis Prevost, in the Oval Office, just a day after the vice president met the new pontiff in Rome.

But it will take more than staged Oval Office meetings or absurd declarations to bridge the gulf between the Trump administration and the Vatican on a range of issues, from appeasement of Putin and indifference to Israel's onslaught against Gazan civilians, to migrants' rights. The piquant details are not going to enamour the Nobel Peace Prize jury. If, in the unlikely event, the race for the Prize came down to a choice between the leader of a political cult and head of a religious movement, there would be only one winner. And if Leo got the award, his satisfaction would come not from the recognition, but the peace he'd helped bring about.