Mark Carney's stand against Trump leads to Nobel Peace Prize and Time Person of the Year buzz

ROB GILLIES
Tue, September 29, 2026 
AP


Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks after LNG Canada said it will go ahead with the Phase 2 expansion project at its LNG terminal in Kitimat, B.C., during an announcement in Vancouver, on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP) (DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press via AP)

TORONTO (AP) — Mark Carney built a global profile in 2026 by standing up to U.S. President Donald Trump. If some prediction-market traders and prominent admirers are right, the Canadian prime minister could end the year with the Nobel Peace Prize and Time magazine's Person of the Year.

Carney briefly became the favorite Monday for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize on Kalshi, a U.S.-based prediction market, when traders on the exchange put his chances at 14%. His odds later fell, illustrating the highly speculative nature of the wagering.

There is no public evidence Carney is on the Nobel Committee's secret shortlist for the prize that will be announced Oct. 9 in Oslo, Norway.

But the buzz about the Canadian leader possibly winning the esteemed peace prize reflects the message that has raised his profile: Middle powers should band together to defend sovereignty as great powers increasingly use economic and military leverage.

Whether that position resonates with the Nobel Committee is impossible to know. One thing is certain, though: the Nobel and Time's annual award happen to be two honors Trump covets.
Trump believes he deserves Nobel honor

Carney and Trump are locked in an escalating trade war, with 50% U.S. tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian goods and Canadian retaliation. Trump also has told Canadian leaders to "fall in line" or face consequences "far WORSE" than existing tariffs.

Trump, who has twice been Time's Person of the Year, has repeatedly complained about not receiving the Nobel, saying in July that he "should have won that award more than anybody."

"President Trump would be furious, of course," said Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. "If this ever happens, I would love to be a fly on the wall of the Oval Office to see the president's face when he learns about it."

Trump already possesses a Nobel medal, just not one awarded to him.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel laureate, presented Trump with her medal at the White House in January. Trump accepted it, while the Nobel Committee stressed the prize itself remains hers.

"Trump will be unhappy whoever gets the Nobel," said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. "If Carney got it, it would make relations with Canada rockier than they are."

Carney has strong case for Time award

Time already named Carney one of its 100 most influential people of 2026 and specifically noted his popularity increased as he stood up to Trump.

On Tuesday, Carney was the second choice on major prediction markets for Time's Person of the Year, behind New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The winner will be announced Dec. 10.

Time has described Trump's cumulative impact as helping create a "new global order" increasingly shaped "not by systems or institutions, but by the will of a single man." Carney's answer has been to urge middle powers to band together rather than bend one by one.

New York University professor Scott Galloway said Carney has it in the bag and called him "the leader that Europe's been looking for for the last 20 years."

"I believe, hands down, Time's Person of the Year has already been decided and it's going to be Mark Carney," Galloway said.

On Galloway's podcast, journalist Fareed Zakaria said Carney is winning admiration abroad and has given countries facing a less predictable United States "a kind of language and a path" to build new alliances rather than simply bend to Washington.
Carney moving to front of a new global order

Carney's standing abroad took off in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he declared the old international order was not coming back and urged middle powers to work together rather than wait for its restoration. His speech came as European leaders were confronting Trump's push to acquire Greenland and tariff threats.

"We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition," Carney said in his speech, which received a standing ovation.

Carney has since tried to put the argument for a new global order into practice, pushing Canada closer to Europe and seeking new partners in Asia as Trump's tariffs fractured the old Canada-U.S. relationship.

European lawmakers gave Carney another standing ovation this month as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed opening the door for Canada to become the European Union's first associate member.

"Carney's international profile has been driven by his standing up to Trump, unlike the Europeans and Asians who rushed to make deals with him," Wiseman said. "Trump's pressure on Canada has helped elevate Carney in the eyes of the world."

Canada could steal the one prize Trump wants most

Rachel Dobkin
Mon, September 28, 2026 

Key takeaways

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney could potentially win the Nobel Peace Prize, leading humanitarian organizations in the odds.


Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney could steal the Nobel Peace Prize from Donald Trump after the president spent the year complaining about not receiving the award.

Trump has repeatedly aired his grievance about the Norwegian Nobel Committee not offering the medal to him, claiming to have helped resolve several world conflicts. Now, with this year's prize announcement less than two weeks away, one of the president's political foes may receive the coveted award.

Carney had a 14 percent chance to take the Nobel Peace Prize on October 9, leading humanitarian organizations Doctors Without Borders and Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, sports betting information site Covers reported Monday morning, citing data from prediction market Kalshi.

The Canadian leader has pushed back against Trump amid an escalating trade war. Carney said the U.S. tried to restrict his country's ability to make trade deals with other nations during talks last month, which he found to be "unacceptable" and "a question of sovereignty," the Associated Press reported.

Carney got a standing ovation for a speech he gave in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he rebuked Trump's threats to slap tariffs on imports from European allies until the U.S. reached a deal to acquire Greenland.

"Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic," Carney said.

He also talked about the "rupture in the world order…where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

"On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states," Carney said.

Carney had a 14 percent chance of taking the award, leading humanitarian organizations Doctors Without Borders and Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms, according to a Monday morning report, citing data from prediction market Kalshi (AFP via Getty Images)More

Carney's chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize dropped to 5 percent on Kalshi by Monday evening, falling behind Sudan's Emergency Response Rooms and Doctors Without Borders. But he still led Trump, who had a 2 percent chance of winning the award on Kalshi.

Trump has exaggerated his accomplishments in world peace while starting a war with Iran, saying the Middle Eastern country posed an "imminent" threat to Americans because of its "nuclear ambitions."

"I ended eight wars. Did I get the Nobel Prize? No," Trump said from the Oval Office earlier this month. "Although the person that got it was nice enough that she gave it to me. She said, nobody in the history of the Nobel Prize deserves it more than you. But in Norway, they don't like me because I think they think I'm a little conservative."

Trump was referring to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner who presented her medal to Trump in January after U.S. forces captured Venezuela's then-President Nicolás Maduro.

Publicly viewable Pentagon data reveals that at least 19 American troops have died in the Iran war, and thousands more Iranians have been killed, according to reports.

During his speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week, Trump threatened to annihilate Iran.

"I have a big decision to make — will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before…or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?" Trump asked.

While Trump wages war with a Middle East adversary, he is also picking a fight with America's northern ally. The president has pushed for Canada to become the 51st state and called Carney the "future governor of Canada." He also signed an executive order last month to change the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America."

After trade talks failed, Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on about $20 billion of Canadian imports last month, according to the AP. Canadian officials then announced "dollar-for-dollar" tariffs on American goods, including steel, electronics and dairy, that began earlier this month. Trump's administration then banned some Canadian dairy products, motorcycles, and most alcoholic beverages, which Carney said were "relatively modest measures" compared to other U.S. actions, according to another AP report.

Carney has signaled that he will continue to work with Trump on other international issues, saying, "We continue to have to work with the United States. We can compartmentalize across this."