(March 12): Norway is working to persuade the European Union to exempt it from any broad protective tariff as a response to the US after US President Donald Trump kicked off a trade war with levies on metals.

The Nordic country is speeding up the approval of EU laws to improve its negotiating position and avert a scenario in which it has to pay tariffs to sell goods in the EU, its main trading partner. 

On Thursday, Norway will implement about 40 EU directives, State Secretary Maria Varteressian told Bloomberg in an email.

The risk is that the EU enacts so-called safeguard measures, which the World Trade Organisation rules say must treat all countries equally, according to the Foreign Ministry. But the government in Oslo hopes a written exemption from the EU will override the WTO rules. That was the case in 2018, when Norway was excluded from levies set by the EU on steel imports.

In contrast, any specific retaliatory tariffs by the bloc — such as the ones unveiled Wednesday — would not hit Norway, the Foreign Ministry said.

The EU will avoid damage from any use of safeguard measures on allies like Switzerland and Norway, according to a senior EU official.

Norway has full access to the European market through its membership in the European Economic Agreement, alongside Iceland and Liechtenstein. While the three countries have agreed to implement most EU directives in return, domestic politics often play a part and some laws end up being harder to pass. In Norway, the backlog extends to more than 500 directives.

Norway’s coalition government broke down in January, and the EU-sceptic Centre Party left the government. Now Labour — ruling alone for the first time since 2001 — is able to speed up EU integration. The trade bloc is a destination for roughly 70% of Norway’s exports.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre recently said he’s worried a trade war will lead to a “triple squeeze” for Norway, being hurt by levies from all sides leading potentially to a recession if a full-blown trade war were to take place.

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