US-Norway Memorandum of Cooperation on High-Standard, Market-Oriented Trade of Critical Minerals

Mechanism

The MoC is a non-binding intergovernmental framework instrument establishing two operational threads:

1. High-standard supply-chain cooperation. Joint commitment to advance high labour and environmental standards in global critical-mineral supply chains, with explicit reference to the USGS critical-minerals list and the Norwegian/EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) priority lists. Norway's primary leverage sits in (i) graphite (Skaland mine, the only EU-located battery-grade flake graphite producer), (ii) cobalt-nickel (Glencore Nikkelverk refinery in Kristiansand, Europe's largest non-Russian cobalt and nickel refinery), (iii) magnesium (Norsk Hydro magnesium-alloy operations) and (iv) the Fen Complex REE deposit (Norge Mineraler) plus the Engebø rutile-garnet project (Nordic Mining).

2. Non-Market Policies and Practices (NMPP) analytical framework. The Department of Commerce and the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries jointly produced a Report on Non-Market Policies and Practices in the Critical Minerals Sector — the first time the NMPP framing has been formally operationalised in a critical-minerals bilateral. The NMPP framework is the analytical scaffolding the US uses to identify and respond to third-country (read: PRC) market distortions: subsidies, forced-labour, opaque state-owned-enterprise pricing, and environmental dumping. Embedding NMPP at the bilateral-MoC level pre-positions both parties for coordinated trade-remedy action (CVD, AD) on minerals-derived intermediates.

The instrument is signed on the final week of the Biden administration (six days before the Trump inauguration on 20 January 2025) — timing that suggests the outgoing administration sought to lock in the framework before a transition. The MoC has since been referenced in Trump-administration FORGE and bilateral-MoU work as a template for the high-standards producer track (paralleling the EM-producer FORGE bilaterals).

Why severity 3

• First standalone US-Norway critical-minerals bilateral instrument;

upgrades the relationship from the April 2024 Biden-Støre Joint Statement to a formal MoC with a co-authored NMPP analytical product attached.

• Norway is the only Western European jurisdiction outside the EU

with material upstream/midstream critical-minerals capacity (Glencore Nikkelverk cobalt-nickel refinery, Skaland graphite, Fen Complex REE prospect, Engebø rutile-garnet project) — the MoC formalises preferred-partner status for US offtake and investment.

• NMPP framework embedding is the structurally novel element:

the first time the US has co-authored an NMPP report with a partner government, providing a template for subsequent G7 and EU-track instruments.

• Severity capped at 3 (not 4) because the instrument is

non-binding, signed on the cusp of administration transition, and carries no specific financing commitment of the kind attached to the Cove Kaz tungsten track in the US-Kazakhstan MoU (USD 900m).

Downstream implications

• Provides the bilateral umbrella under which Norge Mineraler's

Fen Complex REE project and Nordic Mining's Engebø rutile-garnet project can attract US development-finance and offtake interest without triggering Norwegian Foreign Direct Investment Act screening complications.

• Establishes the high-standards producer template that runs in

parallel to the EM-producer FORGE bilaterals (Argentina, Cook Islands, Ecuador, Guinea, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, UAE, Uzbekistan, UK) signed 4 February 2026.

• The NMPP joint report becomes the analytical reference for

subsequent EU and G7 trade-remedy work on minerals-derived intermediates (electrolytic manganese dioxide, battery-grade graphite, cobalt sulphate, separated rare-earth oxides).

• Provides Norway with public-policy cover to favour US-aligned

offtake structures over PRC-linked alternatives in the privatisation/JV sequencing of the Fen Complex and Engebø development paths.

Open questions

• Will the Trump administration formally re-affirm the MoC, or

treat it as a Biden-era hangover (the administration has been selective about re-affirming Biden-signed bilateral instruments)?

• Does the NMPP joint report get updated annually, or is it a

one-off product? An annual cadence would convert it into a surveillance instrument with material trade-remedy implications.

• How does the MoC interact with Norway's adoption of the EU

Critical Raw Materials Act (Norwegian government position published 10 July 2023) — is there an explicit provision preventing duplication or contradiction with EU CRMA strategic- project designations?

• What share of Norge Mineraler Fen Complex offtake will be

redirected toward US end-users versus EU end-users on the initial 5-year ramp?