Customs taxes: Roger Nordmann denounces the American culture of “looting”

Customs duties at 39% and price of the F-35 which climb, the news of this first half of August is marked by a feeling of helplessness in the face of American decisions which penalize Switzerland. Thursday, the program for Forum on RTS returned to this problem by inviting in particular the former Vaudois national advisor Roger Nordmann (PS).

For him, the current situation reveals certain “underlying myths”, which prevent us from seeing things as they are. One of them is to think that “we are like the Americans, we are the favorites of America. It is the Americans who love us, not Europeans … It is a kind of fantasy that we also see in banks and which is completely false ”. And to illustrate: “This is a bit like the problem of Zurich bankers to always want to go business in the United States to be adults. In the end, it always ends badly. ”

According to him, it is necessary to question this prejudice that the United States and Switzerland would be “sisters republics”: “In reality, America has been built on a logic of looting. It is a logic of the law of the strongest which makes this American culture, where we leave the weakest aside ”.

“Switzerland is the antipodes of this,” he says. Switzerland is a country of cooperation, between us already, internally very strongly. We are a country that is made of solidarity, if we think, for example, of the AVS which is the most united retirement system in the world … With this attempt to do like the Americans, as if we were like them, we deny that in reality, we are completely different. Our culture is obviously much closer to that of Europeans ”.

To the question of whether he was surprised by the resigned attitude of the Federal Council in the face of his recent failures before the American administration, Roger Nordmann replied: “You have to be clear: Donald Trump is crazy … He acts irrationally. Besides, it is very harmful to the American economy which is starting to have signs of recession. Compared to this madness and this narcissistic aspect that he has to want to announce deals, the Federal Council lacks instruments, does not have so many possibilities to act. On this, we can’t really reproach him. ”

But reproaches, he still has it. Roger Nordmann is also very critical of “this team of oligarchs who accompanied the federal advisers and who imposed this strategy of going to wallow in Washington”.

He evokes in particular the billionaire Alfred Gantner, at the origin of the La Bousson initiative, who seeks to sabotage the bilateral agreements of Switzerland with the European Union: “Mr. Gun from Partner Group, this investment box based in Zug, will dictate to the Federal Council its policy. The result is a total failure because basically, they do not have the general interest of the country, but their own interests before the eyes … This is part of these myths, these lies which must be released, and see that we need others, our neighbors and in particular in Europe “.