Known for inventing dynamite, Alfred Bernhard Nobel bequeathed his fortune to establish Nobel prizes. Cambodia’s recommendation for Trump to become the 2025 Nobel peace winner reflects both her stance on the war and her wish to show some independence from China. Phnom Penh believes that Trump’s phone conversations with the leaders of Thailand and Cambodia resulted in a ceasefire which saved a large number of lives. The acting premier of Thailand Phumtham Wechayachai has also acknowledged that reality, at any rate in the short-term. But Cambodia’s de facto leader in the confrontation, ex-strongman Hun Sen, is currently keen to flatter Trump’s ego in order to create some space with China. Sophal Ear, researcher at the School of Global Management, said Phnom Penh did not wish to disappear entirely into Beijing’s pocket. Hun Sen, the arch power player, has also downplayed the mediatory role of Malaysia, current chair of ASEAN, an organization he sees as indecisive. Thailand won’t be joining Cambodia in its Nobel recommendation. As Khaosod points out, it’s far too early to say that the border conflict is resolved notwithstanding Trump’s premature headline claims. Moreover, Phnom Penh has behaved hypocritically by criticizing Thailand’s purchase of Swedish military aircraft but remained oddly silent about her buying F-16 US fighter jets. Hunter Marston, of the Center for Strategic Studies think tank, said that Cambodia’s flattery of the US president was a cost-free way to score spotlight points. For now that is. Trump won a spoof Nobel prize in 2020 for his medical knowledge about covid. Even so, it can’t be ruled out that Trump could win the 2025 peace prize awarded every October by a five-person Norwegian committee. There have been peculiar success stories in the past, such as Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho jointly in 1973 for a Vietnam ceasefire which soon collapsed and led to a bloodbath. However, the 2024 award (with 250 nominations) was respectfully won by Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization dedicated to the worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons. Trump has, sort of, got one Nobel prize under his belt already. In 2020 he won the Ig Nobel Satirical Prize for Medical Education, awarded by the Annals of Improbable Research, for his recommendation that injecting poison into human bodies might be a covid cure. To give Trump the real 2025 Nobel prize for peace would be to reward the man who this year bombed Iran and called Gaza a piece of prime real estate. An influential Thai Facebook contributor commented that a Trump Nobel success would be like awarding first prize at a dog show to a hyena.