Trade negotiations
“A regulated relationship, but not at any cost”
Two days of emergency negotiations will not have been enough for the Swiss delegation to convince Washington to give up customs duties of 39%. An extraordinary session of the Federal Council was held Thursday in the afternoon, announcing the desire to continue the talks, without applying for the moment of response to American products.
The president of the Confederation, Karin Keller-Sutter (right), speaks alongside the Swiss Minister of the Economy, Guy Parmelin, at a press conference at the end of an extraordinary meeting after the Swiss government failed to convince the US government not to impose customs duties of 39 % on Swiss products, in Bern, on August 7, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
Barely returned early Thursday morning of a trip to Washington to try to influence the position of the White House, the president and finance minister, Karin Keller-Sutter, and Guy Parmelin, the Minister of the Economy found their five colleagues in the federal government to manage the crisis.
At the end of this meeting, the Federal council reaffirmed in a press release its determination “To continue discussions with Washington in order to reduce these additional customs duties as quickly as possible to Swiss products”. It specifies 60% of goods intended for the American market are affected by these new additional customs duties of 39%.
“We want a regulated relationship” with the United States, “but not at any cost,” said the president of the Confederation during a press point. The press release indicates, however, that no commercial response will be implemented at this stage: “Customs countermeasures in response to American customs duties are not envisaged for the moment.”
Gianni Infantino as a mediator?
Karin Keller-Sutter has confirmed that representatives of the Swiss ministries concerned are still in the American capital to conduct these crucial discussions for whole sections of the Swiss economy: watchmaking, industrial machines, cheese or chocolate. The government cannot say how long the situation will last, she said, acknowledging that “the final decision goes to the American president”.
In Washington, the Swiss delegation was only able to meet Marco Rubio, the head of American diplomacy and not Donald Trump. At the end of this meeting on Wednesday with the American Secretary of State, Ms. Keller-Sutter had only spoken of “a very friendly exchange and open to the common issues”, without giving more information. According to Ms. Keller-Sutter, it was a question of knowingly expanding the circle of interlocutors, Mr. Rubio “being a very important character of this administration”.
Faced with the heavy consequences looming for the Swiss economy, votes have been raised to ask that Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, intercedes. The boss of the International Football Federation is “the man of the situation”, according to Roland Rino Büchel, deputy of the Democratic Union of the Center (UDC, radical right), who sees him in “the direct key” of access to the Oval Office. The president of the international organization, who is reputed to be close to Donald Trump, is “the person in Switzerland who has the best access to the American president,” he told the SRF television channel.
The “disaster scenario”
“The catastrophic scenario becomes reality,” reacted the employer organization Swissmem, which represents manufacturers of industrial machines, electrical equipment and companies in the metal sector. “If this exorbitant customs burden is maintained”, exports of companies in these sectors are “de facto in agony”, all the more so since their competitive European Union one you Japan are applied customs duties “significantly lower”underlined the employers’ organization in a press release.
Like Swissmem, the Economiesuisseur employers’ organization called on the government “to continue negotiations with the United States”, noting that these customs rights “strongly weaken the international competitiveness of our businesses” and “seriously endanger thousands of jobs”.
In response to immediate concerns concerning exporting companies, the Federal Council said it took the measure of the situation: “The compensation in the event of a reduction in the work schedule (RHT), a proven instrument, aims to maintain jobs in the event of temporary and inevitable loss of work. Companies may also use it when they are directly or indirectly affected by new customs duties. ” These include helping the most affected companies to be able to put their staff with partial unemployment longer. Other additional measures are currently examined.
In a note published Wednesday evening, Adrian Prettejohn, economist at Capital Economics, stresses that these customs duties by 39% could reduce the gross domestic product of Switzerland “by 0.6% in the medium term”, and even more Depending on the fate reserved for pharmaceutical productsor “between 1% and 2%”, according to him.
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