President Donald Trump was courteous toward Norway during his first term, describing it as a country the United States should accept more immigrants from. But on Sunday, two weeks after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2026 Peace Prize, he disparaged the country using a vulgar term for an outhouse.

“Frankly, Norway sucks,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday. “Norway has become a shithouse country, actually.”

He suggested that the United States should accept fewer Norwegian immigrants, saying, “I didn’t get the Nobel Prize.”

“So I don’t want anybody from Norway,” the president continued. “I don’t want anything to do with Norway.”

The Nobel Peace Prize — which the president has openly campaigned for — was awarded in Oslo, Norway, to Navi Pillay, a South African human rights lawyer.

Trump’s remarks were met with bewilderment and exasperation in Norway, where top government officials have repeatedly said they do not have influence over who is awarded the Peace Prize.

“He knows very well that the Nobel committee is independent,” Espen Barth Eide, the Norwegian foreign minister, told the country’s public broadcaster NRK on Monday. “We have reminded him of that, in case anyone is wondering, and that is still the case.”

Norwegians on social media expressed their dismay at Trump’s remarks, although few seemed surprised. Some pointed out that Trump had described Norway in 2018 in glowing terms that were racially tinged when he contrasted the country with Haiti.

In his comments to NRK, Barth Eide also sought to downplay Trump’s insult as campaign rhetoric and said Norway attached “great importance” to its long-standing relationship with the United States.

According to Norway’s office for government statistics, more Americans immigrated to Norway in 2025 than Norwegians immigrated to the United States. Last year, 1,529 American citizens moved to Norway, compared with 1,005 Norwegians who relocated to the United States.

Norwegians generally view Trump’s public comments with some skepticism, said Eirik Lokke, an analyst at Civita, a centrist think tank in Oslo.

“We have simply grown accustomed to his erratic behavior and tend not to take every outburst too seriously,” he said.

“The Nobel Committee is entirely independent of the Norwegian government,” Erik Aasheim, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Nobel Institute, said in a statement.

Norway’s parliament appoints the committee’s five members for six-year terms. To protect the organization’s independence, members of the government have been barred from sitting on the committee since 1936 and incumbent lawmakers since 1977.

Trump has openly jockeyed for the Peace Prize for about a decade, mentioning it in dozens of interviews and speeches and also complaining about it privately. He described the committee’s decision this month to award Pillay the 2026 prize as “an indelible stain on Norway.”

In its announcement on Oct. 9, the Nobel committee said it was honoring Pillay, 85, for her efforts to promote international law. Over the years, she served as a top U.N. official and a judge on the International Criminal Court. Last year, she led a U.N. commission on Israel that said it was committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, a finding that Israel rejected.

At the rally Sunday in Michigan, where Trump ally Mike Rogers is locked in a close Senate contest with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, the president returned again to the subject of the Nobel Prize, indicating that he had expected to be awarded it while also suggesting he had been too busy to give the issue much attention.

He repeated his claim that he had settled eight wars, which he has previously suggested should be rewarded with eight Nobel Peace Prizes. Several of the wars he has previously cited, including those between Israel and Hamas and between Israel and Iran, remain unresolved.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Leo Sands and Henrik Pryser Libell/Haiyun Jiang
c. 2026 The New York Times Company