Nidwald is Trump’s biggest victim

Faced with Trump, not all cantons are equal. Some are much more heavily impacted than others, depending on the nature and quantity of their exports.Image: Imago / Keystone, montage watson

The customs hammer does not hit all the cantons with the same intensity. In addition to the share of exports to the United States, the mixture of sectors plays a key role. At the top of the risk map is a small canton.

Maurizio Minetti / CH Media

The United States is the main country of export in Switzerland. Donald Trump’s customs hammer particularly strikes two branches: watchmaking and machine industry.

Trump’s impact on the cantons

But what about geographically? What cantons are the most affected by the additional customs duties of 39%? To find out, you have to ask yourself who exports the most to the United States.

The Cantonal Bank of Lucerne detailed the question in a recent analysis. These percentages exclude precious metals, stones and jewelry, as well as works of art and antiques. Here are the figures:

Nidwald, main victim of Trump

If we consider, for each canton, the share of exports to the United States compared to the total of sales abroad, we see that the small canton of Nidwald is at the top of the risk map. Nowhere else in Switzerland dependence in the United States is so strong.

Last year, Nidwald exported 47% of its goods to the United States, against 42% in 2023. This strong percentage is due to the Pilatus aeronautical manufacturer, whose headquarters are in Stans. Almost half of the company’s total turnover is made in America, where its PC-12 and PC-24 business planes are among the best sales.

A Pilatus production plant in Stans (NW).Image: ZVG

Pilatus has experienced strong growth in recent years, to the delight of the canton, with the creation of several hundred jobs per year. The company has also expressed itself on the subject by announcing temporarily suspend their deliveries in the United States, evoking a “considerable competitive disadvantage”.

The Pilatus press release also indicates that the company wishes to “take advantage of the delivery of deliveries to develop solutions with its customers and partners” and specifies that services with customers based in the USA continue despite the delivery of deliveries.

The situation is quite different in Uri, at the other end of the scale. Here, dependence on the USA is almost nonexistent: exports to this country represent only 1.5 % of the total sales abroad.

Pharma as an impact gauge

Six cantons export more than 20% of their goods to the United States. Despite these high shares, the impact of the customs tariff of 39% varies from one region to another, due to the composition of exports.

If the pharmaceutical industry is excluded, currently spared by these customs duties, Nidwald remains the most affected canton. This exclusion, on the other hand, saves Valais, because almost 67% of its exports come from this sector. Argovie, which occupies third place, displays a share of 55% of pharmaceutical products in all of its exports. Neuchâtel is also less strongly struck in fact thanks to its majority of pharmaceutical exports. The impact is therefore less that would suggest the list published by the Cantonal Bank of Lucerne, at least for the moment.

Overall, Swiss exports to the United States focus on a limited number of products. With almost 64%, the pharmacy constitutes by far the most important category, followed by precision instruments, watchmaking, jewelry, then machines, devices, electronic products and finally agricultural and forestry products. These four categories alone represent almost 95% of all of Switzerland’s goods exports to the United States.

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