Did U.S. President Donald Trump threaten a 250% tariff on Norwegian salmon because "Norway is about to win the most golds" at the Winter Olympics? No, that's not true: The viral image of his supposed Truth Social post is not real. Lead Stories searched his account and news reports, but found no confirmation that he wrote what some on social media said he had posted.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on February 8, 2026. The entry consisted of an image that looked like a Trump post on Truth Social. It read:
Norway is about to win the most golds AGAIN. A country smaller than South Carolina! We pay for their ENTIRE defense through NATO, and they spend it all on wax labs running fluorocarbon powder overlays on CLASSIFIED sintered polyethylene base material that you literally CAN'T EVEN BUY. If Norway does not IMMEDIATELY share their stone grind patterns and fluorocarbon protocols with American teams, I will have no choice but to put a 250% tariff on Norwegian salmon, effective immediately. I also hear their wax technicians are very talented people, and many of them would love to come work for the United States. Can't blame them! MAKE SKIING FAIR AGAIN!
This is what the shared image looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of post at x.com/PatrickJBlu)
Lead Stories searched Trump's account on Truth Social (archived here) but did not find a single mention of "Norwegian salmon" (archived here).
A search across an archived version of the Trump account (archived here) showed no such post (archived here), either:
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of search results page at trumpstruth.org)
Searches on Google News (archived here) and Yahoo News (archived here) for the period between February 8, 2026, when the supposed post was said to have been published, and the next day showed no credible media reporting on the purported 250% tariff.
And the White House website contained no mention of it (archived here):
(Image source: Lead Stories screenshot of search results page at whitehouse.gov)
The account that posted the claim later wrote (archived here) that the 250% tariff threat on Norwegian salmon hadn't materialized yet.
