Donald Trump said he « really didn’t like » the way the Swiss leader Karin Keller-Sutter talked to him in a phone call the two held last year. Trump raised tariffs on Swiss imports by 9% following a tense phone call with Keller-Sutter, who he mistakenly referred to as Switzerland’s Prime Minister.
In reality, she is a member of the Swiss Federal Council. Switzerland also does not have a prime minister but a president, who is a man. The current president is Guy Parmelin, since January 2026. Frustrated by what he described as the Swiss leader’s tone, Trump said he decided to raise the tariff to 39%.
In a Fox Business interview, he said: « I put on a 30% 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 added: « You may be a small country, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you. »
The furious president went on: « You know, I had an incident with a very nice country, Switzerland. They were paying no tariffs when sending stuff over here – like nobody could believe it – and we had a $42 billion deficit. We weren’t taking anything, and I said, ‘We have to do something, because we have to even that up a little bit.’ I didn’t have to get anything all at once, so I put on a 30% tariff, which was too low. Still, we were having a big deficit, but it was half the deficit.
« You know Switzerland, you think of it as ultra-chic, ultra-perfect. They are not. They are only that because we allow them to rip us off and make all this money. »
« 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%. We are a small, small country.’ But I said, ‘You may be small, but you have a big deficit,' » Trump said.
Following the heated phone call, despite Trump’s rhetoric, the US and Swiss negotiators eventually struck a deal in November to lower the tariff to 15%, with Swiss firms committing $200 billion in investments in the US by 2028.
Switzerland does not have a prime minister. Instead, the country is governed collectively by a seven-member Federal Council. Its current president is Guy Parmelin.
Source link
