Trump links Switzerland to the pharmaceutical industry as part of his strategy. It’s a way to push for production to be relocated to the U.S.: either you pay, or you produce on American soil. Thank you, Mr. Orange !
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Switzerland has a trade surplus with the US when it comes to goods, which is what the US is using, without taking services into account. From the US point of view, that’s a trade deficit (Switzerland sells more goods in the US than the US sell in Switzerland).
Big Pharma and the SNB policies may have been unstated things that counted in the balance.
Plus, Trump has neither a golf court nor a hostel in Switzerland. 
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Well, Qatar offered a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet and they have the 10% baseline tariff.
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Yes yes yes. And quit subsidies. Why the hell we pay more for our good cheese than the U.S. citizen do? And I want my T-bone steak, at U.S. price!
I would not agree. Digital dependence is already there. Now we want to kill our agriculture too?
No no no
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Doesn’t Qatar have trade deficit instead of surplus with US?
Is there cheese in the US? Any time I’ve been there I didn’t notice any cheese anywhere.
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Of course there is. American cheese even has the name in it. And you can buy cheese in all form and shapes, including convenient tubes.
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And “swiss cheese” that’s definitely from Switzerland 
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AKA Holey Shit
This is bad. Our neighbors that relinquished more of their sovereignty got a better deal. It might tilt the outcome of the Bilateral III vote, and generally make the world a worse place…
There is Swiss cheese, best quality and cheaper than here! At least there used to be, export help.
I see a bunch of “exporting companies” soon getting established in Germany that only take 5% profit plus the 15% EU export tariff.
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Isn’t that normal. The more you give up your sovereignty, the more other party likes you. This is the ultimate aim of superpowers
Some use weapons and others use trade. Some use both
Swissmem saying many ten thousand jobs are in danger.
This looks baad, like really bad…
If 40% stays yeah might as well assume US exports mostly stops.
My guess is the additional 7 days delay is meant for us to get back to them with heavy concessions in order to lower the base rate. I don’t know what those concessions would have to look like and it’s possible our negociating team doesn’t know either.
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From the WSJ: The Rough Day in Court for Trump’s Tariffs
Summary (courtesy of Gemini):
U.S. judges are challenging President Trump’s use of emergency powers to unilaterally impose tariffs, questioning the legal basis of his actions. The core dispute revolves around whether the 1977 IEEPA law, which doesn’t explicitly mention tariffs, grants the president this broad authority. Judges expressed skepticism, emphasizing that the Constitution assigns tariff power to Congress and that historical precedent doesn’t support the administration’s claims.
Excerpt (on the novelty of the administration’s argument):
“And yet the statute’s been in existence for over 50 years, correct?…Why is that? Has there been no national emergencies in 50 years?” — Judge Jimmie Reyna
Excerpt (on the lack of legal grounding for tariffs within the law):
“‘Tariffs’ seems to have no friends in that statute, so why would we read tariffs into that statute?” — Judge Alan Lourie
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Whatever the concessions will be - they will be really bad
I think Swiss govt need to carefully weigh them because paying 200 B USD (in whatever form) to save exports of 80 B is also not a very good deal.
This is basically what US wants. They want a region under so much stress that they end up giving up more and more.
Real hard job for the government
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They didn’t even ask how his old pal in Brazil being pursued by the justice system under the new government, or Canada recognizing Palestine would constitute a ‚US national Emergency‘ that would justify a huge jump in tariff rate (from 10% to 50% in Brazil’s case where the US actually runs a trade surplus).
Then again, a friendly Supreme Court may just dismiss such pesky nit picking, nothing wrong with destroying foreign businesses if their governments don’t yield to his views after all.
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