Developed Nations' highest US tariff takes effect on Switzerland
The punitive tariff applies to all products loaded onto a vessel for transport to the US after 12:01 a.m. New York time on Thursday — 6:01 a.m. in Zurich — according to guidance issued by US Customs and Border Protection. Pharmaceuticals and gold are so far exempt.
It went into force after Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter wasn't able to secure a revised deal before the deadline set by Trump. She took a two-day emergency trip to Washington on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to sway her US counterpart, but failed to meet Trump, instead only talking to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's department doesn't lead trade negotiations for bilateral deals.
The Swiss government plane is scheduled to land in Bern at about 7:20 a.m. local time. The tariff level stunned the Swiss after negotiations that they thought looked promising.
But things came to a head late last week when Trump threw out a negotiated framework deal on a call with Keller-Sutter. He was particularly irked by Switzerland's bilateral trade surplus with the US of about $38.5 billion last year.
The problem faced by the Swiss president — who also is finance minister — is that any concessions are likely to be politically costly at home without meaningfully curbing the trade gap. Switzerland's key exports include gold, pharmaceuticals, watches and medical devices and the driving forces behind the deficit mean a quick reduction is unlikely.
If the 39% rate comes into effect across the board — including on pharmaceuticals — that would put up to 1% of Switzerland's economic output at risk over the medium term, according to Bloomberg Economics. Switzerland is home to pharma giants Novartis AG and Roche Holding AG.
Trump has said on Tuesday that he'll announce tariffs on pharmaceutical imports 'within the next week or so,' adding that levies would eventually go to as high as 250%.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
an hour ago
- France 24
Trump says to move homeless people 'far' from Washington
The Republican billionaire has announced a press conference for Monday in which he is expected to reveal his plans for Washington -- which is run by the locally elected government of the District of Columbia under congressional oversight. It is an arrangement Trump has long publicly chafed at. He has threatened to federalize the city and give the White House the final say in how it is run. "I'm going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before," the president posted on his Truth Social platform Sunday. "The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital," he continued, adding that criminals in the city would be swiftly imprisoned. "It's all going to happen very fast," he said. Washington is ranked 15th on a list of major US cities by homeless population, according to government statistics from last year. While thousands of people spend each night in shelters or on the streets, the figure are down from pre-pandemic levels. Earlier this week Trump also threatened to deploy the National Guard as part of a crackdown on what he falsely says is rising crime in Washington. Violent crime in the capital fell in the first half of 2025 by 26 percent compared with a year earlier, police statistics show. The city's crime rates in 2024 were already their lowest in three decades, according to figures produced by the Justice Department before Trump took office. "We are not experiencing a crime spike," Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said Sunday on MSNBC. While the mayor, a Democrat, was not critical of Trump in her remarks, she said "any comparison to a war torn country is hyperbolic and false." Trump's threat to send in the National Guard comes weeks after he deployed California's military reserve force into Los Angeles to quell protests over immigration raids, despite objections from local leaders and law enforcement. The president has frequently mused about using the military to control America's cities, many of which are under Democratic control and hostile to his nationalist impulses.
LeMonde
2 hours ago
- LeMonde
Europe pushes for Ukraine role in Trump-Putin talks
European leaders pushed on Sunday, August 10, for Ukraine to be a part of the negotiations between the United States and Russia, ahead of talks between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. The two leaders will meet in the US state of Alaska on Friday to try to resolve the three-year war, but Europe has insisted that Kyiv and European powers should be part of any deal to end the conflict. EU foreign ministers will discuss the next steps before the talks in a meeting by video link on Monday, joined by their Ukrainian counterpart. The idea of a US-Russia meeting without Zelensky has raised concerns that a deal would require Kyiv to cede swathes of territory, which the EU has rejected. "The path to peace in Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukraine," leaders from France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain and Finland and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a joint statement, urging Trump to put more pressure on Russia. In a flurry of diplomacy, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky held calls with 13 counterparts over three days including Kyiv's main backers Germany, Britain and France. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Sunday said he hoped and assumed Zelensky will attend the leaders' summit. Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said any deal between the United States and Russia to end the war in Ukraine must include Kyiv and the bloc. "President Trump is right that Russia has to end its war against Ukraine. The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine's and the whole of Europe's security," Kallas said. "I will convene an extraordinary meeting of the EU foreign ministers on Monday to discuss our next steps," she said in a statement Sunday. Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga will also take part in the meeting on Monday afternoon, the ministry said. Territory sticking point NATO head Mark Rutte told ABC's This Week broadcast on Sunday that Trump was "putting pressure on Putin," adding: "Next Friday will be important because it will be about testing Putin, how serious he is on bringing this terrible war to an end." New Le Monde's app Get the most out of your experience: download the app to enjoy Le Monde in English anywhere, anytime Download Ukraine's military said on Sunday it had taken back a village in the Sumy region from the Russian army which has made significant recent gains. The village is on the frontline in the north of the country and about 20 kilometers west of the main fighting between the two armies in the northern region. As a prerequisite to any peace settlement, Moscow demanded Kyiv pull its forces out of the regions and commit to being a neutral state, shun Western military support and be excluded from joining NATO. Kyiv said it would never recognise Russian control over its sovereign territory, though it acknowledged that getting land captured by Russia back would have to come through diplomacy, not on the battlefield. The EU's Kallas backed Kyiv's position on Sunday. "As we work towards a sustainable and just peace, international law is clear: All temporarily occupied territories belong to Ukraine," the EU foreign policy chief said. NATO's Rutte said it was a reality that "Russia is controlling some of Ukrainian territory" and suggested a future deal could acknowledge this. "When it comes to acknowledging, for example, maybe in a future deal, that Russia is controlling, de facto, factually, some of the territory of Ukraine. It has to be effectual recognition and not a political de jure recognition," Rutte told ABC's This Week.
Fashion Network
5 hours ago
- Fashion Network
Swiss gold refining sector stung by US tariffs
But a White House official told AFP that President Donald Trump 's administration plans to "issue an executive order in the near future clarifying misinformation about the tariffing of gold bars and other specialty products". It was not immediately clear if this meant the products would therefore be exempt from Trump's "reciprocal" levies, imposed to address what Washington deems as unfair trade deficits. One-kilo gold bars are the most traded type of bullion on Comex, the world's biggest futures market, and Switzerland is a major supplier of the bars on the physical market. Expectations had been widespread that gold bars would be classified under a different customs code that excludes them from Trump's countrywide tariffs. Higher "reciprocal" rates took effect Thursday on dozens of economies. Swiss officials travelled to Washington this week to seek a deal similar to the European Union, whose products now face a 15% rate. But they came back empty handed. The customs update increased pressure on the Swiss government as gold trading weighs heavily on its trade balance. John Plassard, head of investment strategy at Cite Gestion, expects some of the gold refining business would likely flow to other industry centres such as Antwerp. Gold bars produced in the Belgian city Antwerp face a 15% US tariff applied to EU goods. Switzerland is home to four of the world's largest gold refineries, the largest being Valcambi in Balerna, in the Italian-speaking part of the country. They import unrefined gold coming from mines, recycled jewellery or lower-purity bars to be recast into high-quality bars, making Switzerland a hub for the global gold trade. These bars are then reintroduced to the market for jewellery, watchmaking, industry and tech products, as well as the banking sector and for use as central bank reserves. According to a Swiss Federal Customs Administration report, the country imported 2,372 tonnes of gold in 2023 and re-exported 1,564 tonnes. The value of these exports approached 88 billion Swiss francs ($109 billion at current rates), with the main buyers being China at 25.1 billion francs and India at 13.1 billion francs. Including other precious metals like silver and palladium, the sector accounts for 1,500 direct jobs in the country and 1,000 indirect jobs, according to the Swiss association of manufacturers and traders of precious metals. In 2023, Switzerland accounted for 34% of the total refined gold worldwide, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO). Swiss gold exports to the United States soared to 11 billion Swiss francs last year, nearly doubling from 6.1 billion in 2023. They then skyrocketed in the first half of 2025, reaching 39.2 billion francs, compared to nearly 1.7 billion in the first half of 2024, according to data Swiss customs provided to AFP. Nearly all of the gold, 37.6 billion francs' worth, was exported in the first quarter of 2025. Shipments then plummeted sharply to roughly 1.6 billion francs in the second quarter. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter on Thursday strongly disagreed with how Trump assessed the US trade deficit with Switzerland, and thus the high tariff imposed. She said the rise in gold exports in 2024 had led to the increase in the deficit. Swiss newspaper Le Temps noted Tuesday that to calculate customs duties on Switzerland "the White House seems to have relied exclusively on 2024 data, "which was "an atypical year". Swiss gold exports to the United States skyrocketed in November, when Trump won the presidential election, triggering a surge in "safe haven" investments such as gold, it said.
