NEWS ANALYSIS: Norwegians’ faith in the United States government was falling as fast as the stock market in New York on Tuesday. Russia is still viewed as posing the biggest threat to Norway, but after a year with Donald Trump as US president, the United States of America now ranks second.

The US Embassy in Oslo remains “Fortress America” in Norway, but still has no ambassador and keeps a low profile amidst all the turmoil tied to Donald Trump. PHOTO: NewsinEnglish.no/Morten Møst

Fully 65 percent of Norwegians responded in a new public opinion poll that they are worried about the USA, with 12 percent of them “extremely worried.” Only Russia caused more concern (77 percent) in the poll conducted last week by research firm Norstat for Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). China, meanwhile, worries just 34 percent.

Even before the poll results were released late last week, Norway’s foreign policy institute NUPI had released a study in August showing that Norwegians have become far more skeptical of the USA. Researchers called it “a clear shift” in public opinion, with more Norwegians wanting less coooperation with the US (42 percent) than those wanting more (25 percent). Fully 70 percent were positive towards NATO, meanwhile, and 78 percent want the alliance to be more independent of the USA, even though that means more massive increases in defense spending.

The new surveys come after months of headlines that help explain not just the disenchantment with the US government under Trump but rising anger and disgust. Here’s a sample of recent translated headlines in Norwegian newspapers, even before Trump slapped new punitive tariffs on Norway and other countries that object to how he wants to take over Greenland:

Trump legitimizes Russia’s war (Aftenposten)

Trump’s bizarre view of the world (national business daily DN)

The new wild west (Dagsavisen)

Donald Trump makes the world a more dangerous place (DN)

Europe asked to fight back against “bully Trump” (Dagsavisen)

USA threatens Europe’s sovereignty (Aftenposten)

Farewell to America (Klassekampen)

The list could go on and on, and illustrates public reaction in Norway to how the country that attracted millions of Norwegian emigrants during the past 200 years is now generating fear and loathing. Trump’s campaign to “make America great again” has instead damaged the reputation of a country that had long been respected and admired.

“He speaks like a drunk racist in a bar,” read the headline on the lead editorial of Norway’s largest newspaper Aftenposten in early December. It was reacting to how Trump, himself the son of an immigrant father, had said he didn’t want Somalian immigrants in the country and that “their country stinks.” He also equated an elected member of Congress from Minnesota with Somalian background to “garbage.” Lots of Norwegian immigrants have settled in Minnesota themselves: The USA, Aftenposten editorialized, “is a large and proud nation built up by immigrants, but the country has chosen a president who can’t behave himself.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre visited US President Donald Trump in the White House last spring but now relations have soured. Støre is standing firm with other European NATO allies against Trump’s threats to take over Greenland from Denmark. PHOTO: Daniel Sannum Lauten/Pool/TV2/Statsministerens kontor

Trump is now widely viewed as a threat in Norway, with newspaper Dagsavisen warning even before Trump directly threatened Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and other NATO allies over the weekend that “it’s impossible to regard or rely on the US as before.” Trump can’t be trusted, maintain others, with defense expert Arne Bård Dalhaug firmly believing that Trump’s new national security strategy for the US is mostly aimed at making money and will “remind us again that all American politics in Trump’s term will remain unpredictable, opportunistic and transactional.”

Norwegian investors like Peter Hermanrud were warning in newspaper DN weeks ago that “the political regime in the US can be dangerous for capitalists in the long term.” He warned against investing more money in US companies, even before the New York Stock Exchange toppled on Tuesday when markets reopened after the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. They were reacting to Trump’s latest tariff threats against European allies who opposed his grab for Greenland.

Trump’s tariffs “aren’t good for Europe or the USA,” senior strategist Joachim Bernhardsen at Nordea Bank told NRK, since they function as an import tax that will raise prices for US consumers. The US dollar also weakened as a reflection of economic concern.

More than half of Norway’s own Oil Fund (a sovereign wealth fund built up from the state’s oil revenues over the past three decades) is invested in the US. Trump’s politics can pose new risks, acknowledged Oil Fund chief Nicolai Tangen, who’s currently among those gathering in Davos this week at the World Economic Forum. “There is a divide now between the US and the rest of the world that’s quite new,” Tangen told NRK. He stressed that markets have remained robust, until now: “Tariffs are negative for the financial markets because they reduce trade and economic growth.”

Norway’s Oil Fund boss Nicolai Tangen is worried about a new “divide” between the US and the rest of the world. PHOTO: NBIM

Norwegian oil and energy firm Equinor, meanwhile, felt compelled to go to court in the US after the Trump Administration has twice tried to shut down it 60-percent-completed wind power project off New York. More than USD 5 billion invested by Equinor in the project is at stake because Trump opposes renewable energy and now claims Equinor’s wind turbines will disturb radar systems and threaten national security. Equinor won a reprieve in the case but the legal fight is just beginning, and shows the risks of investing in Trump’s America.

As Trump also headed for Davos this week, where he wasn’t expected to get a warm welcome, millions of Ukrainians were freezing after another round of Russian bombing of energy infrastructure. Trump long bragged he could end Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine in a day, but now it’s entering its fifth year.

Many Norwegian commentators, defense and foreign policy experts think Putin has been enjoying Trump’s threats to NATO allies, public bullying of Ukrainian leaders, refusals to offer more aid to Ukraine and his latest attempt to all but replace the United Nations with his own “Board of Peace” after the war on Gaza, at a high price to members. Trump attracted Belarus, perhaps best known for being under dictatorship, while Norwegian officials confirmed on Tuesday that Prime Minister Støre had been “invited” to join but declined because of many unanswered questions over how it would function in relation to “established structures” like the UN.

One of Støre’s aides stressed that Norway does “share Trump’s goal of lasting peace in Ukraine and Gaza,” and would continue to try to “cooperate with the the USA and other partners for peace.”

As newspaper DN organized a public “discussion” of Trump on Tuesday, the first anniversary of Trump’s return to the White House, another new poll showed a decline in Norwegians who supported Trump right after he was elected in November 2024. At the time, just over half of young Norwegian men (53 percent of those aged 18-29) said they would have voted for Trump if they could.

That has since dropped to just 29 percent, according to the poll by research firm Ipsos, while only 10 percent of young Norwegian women now support Trump. The new poll shows that 15 percent of Norwegian men aged 30-39 support Trump, as opposed to just 5 percent of women in that age group.

Trump’s support among Norwegians continues to drop among the older generations, with 9 percent of men and 5 percent of women aged 40-59 percent supporting Trump. Only 3 percent of men and women aged 60 and up support Trump now.

NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund