ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter said on Wednesday she had spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump by telephone about trade and was looking forward to reaching agreements after Switzerland was hit with bigger import tariffs than its EU neighbours. “In today’s phone call with President Donald Trump I conveyed both Switzerland’s stance on […]
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Swiss president talks trade with Trump, hopes for fixes soon
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ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter said on Wednesday she had spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump by telephone about trade and was looking forward to reaching agreements after Switzerland was hit with bigger import tariffs than its EU neighbours.
“In today’s phone call with President Donald Trump I conveyed both Switzerland’s stance on bilateral trade, and ways to address U.S. ambitions,” she said on X. “We agreed to continue talks in the interest of both our countries. Looking forward to working out solutions in the very near future.”
When the Trump administration announced its tariffs last week, Switzerland was hit disproportionately with a 31% rate, compared with 20% on the European Union and 10% on Britain.
Switzerland, which abolished industrial tariffs last year, has an economy heavily oriented to trading with the rest of the world, and the U.S. is its single biggest export market.
Earlier, a survey of industry lobbies and firms by business group Economiesuisse showed that nearly half were strongly or very strongly affected by U.S. tariffs on Swiss exports.
(Reporting by Dave Graham; editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Thomas Seythal)