Swiss President Dashes to Washington to Avert Crippling Trump Tariffs

The aim of President Karin Keller-Sutter’s trip Tuesday is to “facilitate meetings with the U.S. authorities at short notice and hold talks with a view to improving the tariff situation for Switzerland,” the Swiss government said.

The tariff tiff presents a significant test for Switzerland’s export model and a dramatic example of how vulnerable even staunch U.S. allies are to abrupt shifts in U.S. policy in the new era of transactional, deficit-focused negotiations under Trump.

Keller-Sutter, whose delegation also includes Economy Minister Guy Parmelin, aims to present “a more attractive offer to the United States in a bid to lower the level of reciprocal tariffs for Swiss exports, taking U.S. concerns into account,” the government said. It is unclear whether Keller-Sutter will meet with Trump or what is included in her new offer.

Chief among those concerns is the fact that Switzerland has one of the largest trade imbalances with the U.S., at $50 billion this year through May. Around a fifth of Swiss exports such as watches, chocolate, pharmaceuticals and machine tools go to the U.S., its largest market. “That’s a big deficit,” Trump said last week after the Swiss tariffs announcement.

Switzerland’s government said its trade surplus wasn’t the result of any “unfair trade practices.” The country unilaterally scrapped all tariffs on industrial goods as of Jan. 1, 2024, meaning over 99% of U.S. goods enter Switzerland tariff-free, it said. It is now the sixth-largest foreign investor in the U.S. and major companies such as Nestlé, Roche and Novartis support some 400,000 American jobs, according to Swiss business organization Economiesuisse.

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