Norwegian exporters are working under a tariff their neighbours in the European Union do not pay. Since 24 July, goods from Norway entering the United States have carried an additional duty of 12.5 per cent, while most EU goods are capped at 10 per cent. Norway’s government has objected in unusually direct language, and has rejected the reason Washington gave for the difference.

What actually changed

Earlier this year the United States applied a temporary blanket surcharge of 10 per cent to imports from most of the world. That measure expired on 24 July. In its place, Washington set country-by-country rates covering some 60 trading partners, at either 10 or 12.5 per cent. Norway was placed in the higher band.

The justification offered by the Office of the United States Trade Representative is not about steel, salmon or subsidies. It is about forced labour. According to the USTR, the countries in the 12.5 per cent band do not have adequate prohibitions on importing goods made with forced labour, and the higher rate is intended as pressure to adopt and enforce such bans.

The measures are not blanket. Washington has exempted several categories, including oil, gas and fertilisers, along with goods already covered by sector-specific tariff regimes. That matters for Norway, whose single largest export to any market is energy.

Norway’s objection

Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide rejected both the measure and the reasoning behind it, saying Norway strongly disagrees with the unilateral use of tariffs and disputes the stated grounds. His argument is that Norway already regulates in this area: forced labour is prohibited, and since 2022 the Transparency Act has required Norwegian companies to carry out due diligence on human rights and working conditions in their supply chains and to act on what they find. In the government’s account, there are “no grounds to impose this tariff on Norway”.

Eide has also written to US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stating that Norway will introduce the same import prohibition as the EU, and no later than the point at which it takes effect in the EU. He convened Norwegian business leaders in early August to assess the consequences, and has described the main damage as unpredictability rather than the duty itself.

The part the forced-labour explanation does not cover

There is an awkward detail in the comparison. The EU’s own forced-labour import ban is not yet in force; it is scheduled to apply from December 2027. Norway is being taxed at the higher rate for not having a prohibition that its neighbours also do not yet apply. Norway is bound to much of the EU’s internal market rulebook through the European Economic Area agreement, and expects to adopt the same ban on the same timetable.

What separates the two is not the rulebook but the paperwork. The EU has concluded a bilateral trade arrangement with the United States that sets a ceiling on the general tariff. Norway has not. Analysts of Norwegian trade policy have made this point sharply: the countries sitting in the higher band are, broadly, the ones without an agreement, and the surcharge on Norway comes without the upper cap that agreement countries secured. The United Kingdom, which is also outside the EU, negotiated its way into the 10 per cent band.

Domestic critics have pressed the government on why no agreement was reached, noting that a negotiating deadline passed without a deal and without a public explanation. The government has not set out its reasoning in detail. Supporters of its approach argue that a small, export-dependent economy has limited leverage in bilateral talks with a much larger partner, and that conceding on regulatory questions to buy a lower tariff carries its own long-term costs. Both positions are contested, and the tariff itself does not settle which is right.

Who feels it

In aggregate, the United States is a modest destination for Norwegian goods — under 5 per cent of goods exports by official statistics. That figure understates the pain, because it is spread unevenly. Seafood is the clearest exposure. Norway is the world’s largest producer of farmed Atlantic salmon and exports the overwhelming majority of what it produces, and the American market has been built up deliberately over decades. A 12.5 per cent wedge does not simply reduce margins; it changes the price a Norwegian fillet carries on a US shelf next to a Scottish, Chilean or Faroese one, and buyers can switch supplier faster than a producer can switch market.

For smaller exporters — machinery, components, processed food — the practical problem is not the arithmetic but the planning horizon. Contracts are quoted months ahead. A duty that arrived at short notice, replaced an earlier one, and may be followed by further measures makes it hard to price anything with confidence.

Who pays a tariff, in practice

It is worth being precise about a phrase that gets used loosely. A tariff is paid to the US treasury by the importer bringing the goods in — not by the Norwegian company that made them, and not by the Norwegian state. Where the cost lands after that depends on bargaining. If the American buyer can pass it to consumers, prices rise. If they cannot, they push the exporter to cut the price, and the exporter absorbs it. Usually it is split. This is the same mechanism we set out when the US Senate authorised tariffs aimed at buyers of Russian oil, in Tariffing the Buyer: The Economics of Secondary Pressure.

That is also why “Norway pays 12.5 per cent” is shorthand rather than description. What has changed is the competitive position of Norwegian goods inside the American market relative to everyone else’s.

What to watch next

Three things will decide whether this stays a manageable irritation or becomes a structural problem for Norwegian exporters. The first is whether Oslo and Washington open talks that produce a cap. The second is whether Norway’s promised forced-labour prohibition, once legislated, removes the stated justification — and whether the rate then moves. The third is whether additional US measures follow: further tariff actions have been signalled but not concluded, and each one arrives with its own legal basis and its own timetable.

For now the gap stands at 2.5 percentage points. It is small enough to sound technical and large enough, in a commodity market with close substitutes, to move orders.

Sources

• Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs — statement on the new US tariff rate
• The Local Norway — Norway opposes the new US tariffs
• News in English Norway — government convenes business leaders
• Samfunn og Politikk — the new US tariff bands and the missing agreement