Donald Trump said he found Swiss leader Karin Keller-Sutter’s tone “aggressive” during a call urging him to roll back reciprocal tarrifs.
US President Donald Trump said he ordered an additional nine per cent increase in tariffs on Switzerland because he did not like the way a Swiss leader spoke to him while urging him to roll back the duty.
Trump, in an interview with Fox Business, said he found the tone of Karin Keller-Sutter, a member of the Swiss Federal Council — whom he mistakenly referred to as the Prime Minister — “repetitive” and “aggressive”.
“I put on a 30 per cent tariff, which is very low. Then I got an emergency call from, I believe, the Prime Minister of Switzerland, and she was very aggressive but nice but very aggressive. She said, ‘Sir, we are a small country. We can’t do this. We can’t do this.’ I couldn’t get her off the phone,” he said.
Trump said he told the Swiss leader that despite being a small country, Switzerland ran a USD 42 billion trade deficit with the United States.
“‘No, no, we are a small country’. Again and again and again. I couldn’t get her off the phone, so it was 30 per cent. And I didn’t really like the way she talked to us and so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 per cent,” he said.
The US President claimed Switzerland was paying no tariffs while exporting goods to America “like nobody could believe”.
He had made similar remarks a few weeks earlier at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he appeared uncertain whether Switzerland had a prime minister or president.
“I guess the Prime Minister, I don’t know, the President, the Prime Minister called, a woman. And she was very repetitive. She said, ‘No, no, no, you can’t do that, 30 per cent. We are a small, small country.’ But I said, ‘You may be small, but you have a big deficit,’” Trump had said.
Switzerland does not have a prime minister or an executive president. Instead, the country is governed collectively by a seven-member Federal Council.
However, US and Swiss negotiators reached a preliminary agreement in November to lower the tariff rate to 15 per cent, with Swiss industry committing to invest USD 200 billion in the United States by the end of 2028.
