The Swiss are waiting in great tension or can still be negotiated on Trumps levy of 39 percent

A yellow bar Toblerone chocolate of 100 grams costs 3.12 dollars at the American supermarket chain Walmart. But if no new trading deal is settled for Thursday, the well -known Swiss triangles with Noga, Almond and Honing will soon be possible for a much higher amount on the shelves.

The chocolate producer, the American company Mondelez International, has the strips formed to the Swiss mountain Matterhorn largely made in Switzerland and is therefore subject to the charges imposed by US President Donald Trump Switzerland. And they are big, the Swiss discovered at the end of last week.

At the beginning of April a shock wave went through Switzerland. At the time, the government imagined itself safe for US import duties due to the abolition of import duties on all industrial goods in 2024 and by the distance from the country to the European Union, so that it could remain outside the trade discussion between the EU and the US. That turned out to be unjustified. Trump imposed on his 31 percent levies, much higher than the 20 percent that the EU received at the time.

“The US has based its own calculations that Switzerland cannot understand,” the Swiss president responded Karin Keller-Sutter at the time. She did not want to hit back with her own rates, but negotiate with Washington to lower the taxes.

That seemed to be going well. Keller-Sutter, also Minister of Finance, spoke the American minister of trade in May during his visit to Geneva and later flew to Washington for discussions. At the beginning of July there was an agreement that, according to the Swiss, only had a signature of Trump under. That Switzerland announced immediately after Trump’s announcement that it wanted to invest nearly 150 billion dollars in the US

The problem is that we think Swiss should make reasonable and honest proposals. We are not good at international power politics

But after a telephone conversation of half an hour with the American president, Keller-Sutter was disappointed on Thursday. The import levy had not fallen since those from April, such as at the European Union and many other countries, but will be 39 percent on 7 August. The German -speaking Dagblad Blick The taxes called “the greatest Swiss defeat” since the Battle of Marignano in 1515, when the Swiss lost to the French. The Tagesanzeer speaks of Keller-Sutter’s “biggest fiasco” in her presidential period.

Deficit

According to Keller-Sutter, the telephone conversation with Trump was dominated by one subject: the American trade shortage with Switzerland. Although the expensive Swiss franc makes products pricey, Switzerland is a huge export power. If it is not about Appenzeller-Kaas or Lindt chocolate, or very specialized products from the manufacturing industry, such as watches, medicines and knives. More than 75 percent of GDP is related to goods that go abroad, especially to America. “The US is the most important trading partner of Switzerland,” says the website of The National Government. In 2023, 18 percent of export passed the ocean; EU countries are good for half of Swiss exports.

Trump is happy to point out that the trade deficit with Switzerland last year amounted to more than 40 billion euros. That means that Switzerland exported 40 billion euros more to the US than imported from it, to Trumps displeasure. But that amount is only about goods. In the field of services, the US has a trade surplus of more than 20 billion euros. Moreover, the small Switzerland is the sixth largest investor in the US. Swiss companies ensure almost half a million jobs there.

In addition, the Swiss trade surplus in goods is largely caused by the export of gold bars and gold bars. The import of gold does not fall under Trumps taxes, but the US president does count its sale in the trade balance.

The pharmaceutical industry of Switzerland, including the large companies Roche and Novartis, is provisionally spared because of the possible damage for patients if medicines are not available or less available. But also for this sector, taxes are in the air: Trump has previously announced that he wants to lower the prices of medicines and reduce dependence on foreign manufacturers, for example by forcing companies with taxes to move their production to the US.

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‘Painful lesson’

Keller-Sutter has been under fire since the telephone conversation. Critics state that she did not tackle the conversation properly and thus deposited Switzerland into financial difficulties. “The problem is that the Swiss think that we should make reasonable and honest proposals. We are not good at international power politics,” said a source with knowledge of the discussions The British business newspaper Financial Times. “There was inconvenience about making big commitments, as other countries did, that are not realistic. It was a painful lesson.”

Others point to the role of large pharmaceutical companies. According to the director of watchmaker Breitling, Switzerland is ‘hosted’ by the pharmaceutical industry, because they have annoyed Trump with their high prices, he told the Financial Times.

But what is also the reason that Switzerland is being tackled so hard, in Switzerland there is panic. The course of watch brand Swatch fell by more than 2 percent on Monday. CEO Nicolas Hayek called Keller-Sutter on the plane to take to Washington. “That would greatly increase the chances of a deal.” Hayek also told Reuters news agency that his company would send “a little more” watches to the US in the coming days before it is August 7.

The Swiss hope that the government will succeed in closing a deal in the coming days – which is not impossible, given Trumps fickle. And possibly the 39 percent levy is also a negotiating tactics of the US government. But closing a deal remains difficult: with the withdrawal of import duties and the investment of 150 billion dollars, the Swiss have already played many trump cards, unless they want to threaten with taxes.

In any case, a lot is at stake during the negotiations. Swiss manufacturers already warned on Friday that the taxes pose a threat to tens of thousands of jobs. Economist Adrian Prettejohn wrote in a report from Capital Economics That the Swiss GDP can fall by approximately 0.6 percent due to a levy of 39 percent. That percentage can increase if the pharmaceutical industry is also imposed on taxes.

With the cooperation of Milo van Bokkum

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