Swiss business leaders don’t understand what happened. I do.
Fractured Relationship
The Wall Street Journal reports Trump’s ‘Slap in the Face’ Puts Neutral Switzerland in Trade-War Crossfire
When Nicola Tettamanti looked at his phone Friday morning, his first reaction was disbelief: Overnight, President Trump had slapped Switzerland with close to the highest tariffs of any country in the world.
Tettamanti is the chief executive of a 55-year-old precision toolmaking business nestled in this mountain-hugged town. He had planned in the near future to expand further into the U.S. by opening an office in Indiana.
His company, Tecnopinz, counts on the American market for as much as a fifth of the demand for its components for industrial machines that make cars, planes and watches.
“I had to check my phone twice, I thought it was fake news,” said Tettamanti on the company’s factory floor, about two scenic hours by train south of Zurich. “This is a catastrophic scenario.”
In a land famed for its neutrality and order, the Swiss reacted with shock and confusion to Trump’s decision to impose a 39% tariff—higher than all but three nations on last week’s executive order: Laos, Myanmar and Syria. Switzerland is one of the few nations whose Aug. 1 tariff rate was higher than Trump’s “Liberation Day” threats in April.
The move upended months of negotiations in which Swiss officials believed they were on the verge of securing a favorable deal.
Business leaders and politicians are scrambling to understand why their historically stable relationship with Washington has suddenly fractured. The Swiss newspaper Blick called it the country’s biggest defeat since French victory in the Battle of Marignano in 1515.
“Switzerland is not a threat to U.S. national security,” said Jan Atteslander, member of the executive board at Swiss business organization Economiesuisse. “Our chocolate and watches don’t endanger U.S. manufacturing.”
Many here now wonder whether Switzerland’s go-it-alone stance in the world should be jettisoned for a closer relationship with the European Union, which struck a more advantageous 15% rate with Trump.
The deficit in goods has skyrocketed this year due to a surge in pharmaceutical and gold imports looking to get to the U.S. ahead of anticipated tariffs. The deficit was nearly $50 billion this year through May, ranking as the fifth-largest goods-trade imbalance among U.S. trading partners.
In June, the U.S. Treasury Department added Switzerland to its watchlist for unfair economic and currency practices. During Trump’s first term, it labeled Switzerland a currency manipulator, accusing it of weakening the franc to aid exports. The central bank has said it intervenes in currency markets to stabilize inflation, not for trade advantage.
For months, Keller-Sutter and her officials had been negotiating a deal that would see Switzerland invest around $150 billion into the U.S. and keep its exports at a lower tariff rate than for the EU.
The two sides met in Washington in April, after which Keller-Sutter said that Switzerland was one of 15 countries the U.S. was working with on negotiations to reach fast deals.
Switzerland gained further credibility when it hosted trade talks between the U.S. and China in May that led to a dialing-down of hostilities. In recent weeks, Swiss government officials suggested a deal was in its final stages.
Some companies took immediate action. The Lucerne-based confectionery maker Confiserie Bachmann—known for its Schutzengeli, or handcrafted guardian-angel chocolate truffles—closed its online shop to U.S. customers to avoid the new levy.
What I don’t understand is why any country or business would expect anything from Trump other than to be spit on.
The numbers are what they are.
It’s obvious that counting gold front-running is absurd. But it is absurd to expect anything from Trump than economic idiocy.
The Correct Attitude
“We’re a small country, we can’t pressure the U.S.,” said Karl Gschwend, a pensioner living in Zurich who used to work as an electrical engineer and had U.S. customers. “Now I wouldn’t want to work with Americans if I had to. Well, maybe in three and a half years when Trump is gone.”
Let Trump have his damn tariffs. Ignore them and watch US jobs crumble led by massive small business failures in the US.
Switzerland Data
- 2024 Exports: 25,042,798,073
- 2024 Exports Through May: 23,917,705,483
- 2024 Imports: 63,325,522,091
- 2025 Imports Through May: 71,803,668,668
- 2024 full year deficit: 38,282,724,018
- 2025 deficit through May: 47,885,963,185
Reciprocal Tariff Nonsensical Calculation
Tariff percent = ((Imports – Exports) / Imports) * 50)
2024 percent = ((63,325,522,091 – 25,042,798,073) / 63,325,522,091) * 50) = 60 percent
2025 percent = ((71,803,668,668 – 23,917,705,483) / 71,803,668,668) = 67 percent.
I suppose Switzerland should be grateful that Trump’s “deal” is not 60 percent or higher.
But the calculation shows why the U.S. Treasury Department added Switzerland to its watchlist for unfair economic and currency practices in June.
Am I the only one who understands this stupid formula?
Regardless, Trump does not give a damn why a nation has a surplus. He generally demands a 15 percent minimum tariff except in rare cases where the US has a trade surplus and then it’s a minimum of 10 percent.
In 2022, the US had a services surplus with Switzerland of 21.5 billion. If we factor that in (but Trump doesn’t) here’s an alternate reciprocal tariff calculation for 2024.
2024 percent = ((41,825,522,091 – 25,042,798,073) / 41,825,522,091) * 50 = 20 percent.
Usually I can figure out where Trump gets a number, but 39 percent does not match anything.
Reflect on the Lead Chart
Strip out gold and pharma. The former is a monetary metal that the BEA ignores (so should Trump) and pharma is a direct result of flawed US tax policy.
Next factor in the US services trade surplus, and the whole thing nets out to about zero. Yet, team trump is investigating Switzerland for manipulation.
There is no dealing with economic madmen. All one can do is step back and wait for this to blow up in Trump’s face and that process is underway with jobs.
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August 1, 2025: Payroll Disaster, Jobs Rise 73,000 but Massive Negative Revisions
There were 258,000 negative revisions in May and June.
Trump blames the BLS for Rigged Job Reports.
The data is about to get worse, much worse.
Trump is 100% to blame for what’s about to happen but he will blame Fed Chair Jerome Powell and the BLS.
This will surely raise the price of fake Rolexes in Shanghai.
This all started back in the depression years. Academics and lefty simps, like unions, loved activist governments. The academics applauded the holy war and the give a way programs provided by the New Deal. Now, they have the supreme activist president, and the same interests recoil in horror shouting dictator.
What’s a Trade agreement? It’s when both sides get together and reach an agreement to Trade amongst each other that is mutually beneficial for both sides.Trump has no interest in negotiating agreements that are mutually beneficial to both sides, he is only interested in using the economic might of the US to pummel nations into accepting whatever he demands. That’s not skillfull deal making, it’s economic extortion. Accept my “deal” or else I destroy your economy, yeah “Art Of The Deal” my a..
Imagine having to clean up the mess Trump has made of America after another 3.5 years of this insanity.
Trust, once broken, is hard to rebuild.
No nation, corporation or person should trust Trump and his merry band of sycophantic perverts.
How our nation will survive another Trump disaster is starting to be worthy of serious thought.
I am happy that my farm is somewhat isolated and I have great neighbors!
Welcome to the Dark Ages of Trump.
did you type this while holding your inhaler? It’s been a long time since any country was in a position to trust us.
sorry you’ve missed that over the last 30 years.
Something to consider:
Foreign visitors to the US are down between 10% and 50% from various nations. This loss of tourism dollars affects many Americans and small business ~ financially. As a part of our services economy it is another way that Trump is hurting our nation.
Trump is only capable of playing one dimensional checkers. Profits for him and his dark ages sycophants. Nothing for America.
What else would a rational person expect from a pathetic old pervert?
Elections have consequences!
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trump! reeeeeeeeeee!
The US have a surplus with Brazil, but the latter got slapped with the highest tariff this round, 50%, thanks to the complicity of Brazilian compradores ready to sell the country off.
Switzerland is a relatively free trade, low tariff country–5% or less. What happened to the reciprocal thing? Trump has done some good things, but this is idiotic.
There is no way the US isn’t driven into recession.
Trump has done some good things? Like screwing and trafficking underage girls? Insane tariffs? Allowing the genocide to continue in Gaza and the Ukraine. Setting up deportation prisons that lack due process? Gutting the SEC to enable insider trading? Setting up currencies to compete with the US dollar? Getting a free 747 from Qatar in exchange for helping foreign oil producers? Threatening Canada and Greenland? Extorting universities and law firms?
Nothing I would consider to be a “good thing”….
Trump reacts to a mean tweet from Medvedev by threatening the world with nuclear Armageddon, like a high school girl who goes ballistic over a mean comment.
High school girls are often poor at Math.
Trump probably just made an arithmetic mistake.
It’s called a categorical syllogism.
Imperial tantrum. At least Rome had a praetorian guard to remove a mad emperor.
The Usonian praetorian guard prefers senile presidents since Ronald.
Switzerland might cancel it patriots and 36 x F35 orders due to higher tariffs, public opinion and increase F35 prices. Switzerland is training with NATO, but it’s not a NATO member. Switzerland defense budget/GDP is: 0.75%. In the US, for 2026: $850B/$30T nominal GDP: 2.8%. With mandatory spending through reconciliation: $960B/$30T: 3.2%, the lowest in years. On top of that: Trump purged BLS and hollowed DC. Trump instilled fear in the regime change king and Chuck. He might ask congress for an extension, bc Biden stole the election. If he doesn’t get it he might declare an emergency rule, confirmed by congress !
Trump had no problem instigating an attempted insurrection after losing the election. Given his narcissistic tendencies and criminal past, I would not put any form of abuse of power past Trump.
Trump and his pals must have a bunch of grey market Rolexes, Vacherons and Pateks to unload.
And I’m only half-joking.
Probably, and they are all set half-century back to the golden age: made in USA, upbeat population, affordable housing, low debt.
Nicolla, please open a factory in Indiana, not an office. Save on tariffs, labor cost, shipping cost and bring dollars home. Between 2009 and 2021 SNB weakened the franc. Since covid it strengthened the franc, selling dollars. A strong franc inhibit export. Swiss 10Y @0.3% is the lowest in Europe and lower than in Japan. The banks are in troubles. Blue collars are under pressure from rising cost and new immigrants. The spread between US10Y and Swiss10Y is over 4%. Traders are getting rich increasing per capita. Most Swiss are renters, working to pay landlords. The labor force cost too much.
Nobody is making decisions to spend billions and years bringing mfg to the USA when Trump spins the tariff wheel on a weekly basis. You know full well nobody knows what Trump will do from meal to meal, let alone year to year. Why move to the US when by the time you move here, Trump has reneged on a deal ten times? Where is the wisdom there Michael, please help us learn.
Never look for wisdom from someone who only prepares word salads
Who is Trump working for?
Not the Americans he is supposed to represent. Trump is an evil human that abuses or traffics little girls and is a convicted felon. Idiots voted for him…
His only priority is himself, his personal fortune and narcissistically displaying his pubic hair signature. His sycophants are equally deranged power hungry predators.
If this pederast does not disgust you with his lack of personal control or ethics, his economic illiteracy should.
Hopefully, there is a hell and all the unpaid contractors and women he has abused will be stabbing him with red hot steel pokers in their turn for all of eternity!
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I don’t think he’s working for someone, but he does act like he’s afraid of someone. Whether that someone is real or a product of dementia induced paranoia, I couldn’t say. It may be he has no idea what’s going on around him and is just spewing like a language model from his remaining functional neurons.
Somebody needs to get the nuclear football away from gramps though… slip him a nerf version with a tickle me Elmo box inside that tells him how special he is.
If he is acting afraid of someone (like say Vlad Putin) then he is probably working for someone (who controls tons of real estate debt from the 1980s and possibly pee tapes too)
lol, I’m sure if you type 4 more comments you’ll convince someone you’re right. You’re so close!!
“To be an enemy of the US may be dangerous, but to be its friend is fatal”
Henry Kissinger
With the notable exception of Israel…
Yeah, wait for that just a little bit longer. Then also Israel won’t be an exemption😉
In Nov 1929 the UN voted for the termination of the British mandate over
Palestine. The British chose: May 15 1948. Israel was born on that day. There was never a Palestinian state. Before May 15 every citizen was a Palestinian. Thereafter every Jew, Arab, Christian and Druze became an Israeli citizen. Israel was subjected to several wars to annihilate it. In wars people die, get injured, become prisoners or unknown soldiers. Hamas is a criminal gang. Most Arab states leaders don’t want Hamas and radical Islam. U guys and the Europeans are brained was by Hamas propaganda about genocide. Hamas is gone. They have no leadership. They have 10/15 alive hostages, their last cards. The Palestinian people are fed up with these savage terrorist who use Palestinian children for protection, stole their food and starved them. If the Palestinian behave they will be free in one democratic state, from the river to the sea. So, don’t erupt like a volcano with: stupidity, ignorance, bs and lies
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“A quote without context is worthless”.
William Tell
Irony is dead. – Anonymous
It looks like the Trump administration divided $47 billion (trade deficit with Switzerland) by $60 billion (imports from Switzerland), and divided the result by 2. The sheer stupidity of this calculation will for the rest of time stand as a monument for economic illiteracy. At the same time, the Penguin Islands (zero inhabitants) continue to pay a tariff of 10 percent.
US consumers of penguin-made products pay that tariff.
Sure. But the problem is that according to Trump’s tariff formula, the tariff for the penguins should be infinite ((0/0)/2 = infinite). The American consumer could no longer afford penguin products.
Hey those penguins work damn hard to pay those tariffs /s
Penguins do pay the tariffs in feathers. They shed them every year, and tell Trump to come collect it.
I hope the price of Puffins won’t be impacted
Maybe the tariff is applied to penguin guano!
Lysenko economics!
We are moving there … Trump may well issue an Executive Order that Columbia and Harvard have to teach his formula as the most accurate approach to calculate optimal tariff rates.
This is nothing more than an extortion racket at this point. Trump is just a smooth talking NYC conman real estate developer. Nobody should trust anything he says or does. I’m ashamed that I wasted my vote on him.
I had no problem NOT voting for an insurrectionist, convicted felon, liar and admitted abuser of women.
How anyone voted for him is beyond reason. Thank mega-media company Newscorp and its Fox networks for their promotion of the Trump abomination.
Kamila whipped his ass in the debate and left him quivering and blathering drivel about eating pets for gods sake. He was scared to debate her again.
Fortunately many MAGA faithful are understanding how bad he is and are turning against him.
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I had no problem not voting for an insurrectionist, as Trump was not an insurrectionist.
Trump beat Kamala and was not afraid of her. I understand how bad Kamala was and do not regret my vote.
You must live under a rock in the Fox News silo!
I hear it is pretty dark in there with those other mushrooms that are kept in the dark and fed shit all day.
Well, I guess it’s not for me to judge you, as much as I’d like to. Welcome back to reality. You’re welcome to stay.
You should be.
The Swiss should maybe make friends with their neighbors, the EU.
I’ll save my sympathy for Syria and Myanmar.
No way! Trump will be gone in 3.5 years. The EU is a prison with no escape. Ask Hungary, Romania or Georgia (EU adjacent) – where they struggle constantly to get their share of funding, to let their most popular candidates remain on the ballot and to set their own policies on immigration. The last thing Hungary needs is more Muslim “refugees” to set up Pairs-like banlieues and set fire to hundreds of churches – like they did Notre Dame. Switzerland already has friction with Muslims when they’re only 5.5% of the population. Brussels would force that up to 30% very quickly. Unless the native population is clamoring for Islamic rape gangs (“diversity is our strength”), Switzerland needs to retain its sovereignty, not relinquish it over a relatively insignificant and passing issue like a tariff.
At least with this totally ad hoc, from-the-hip, moment to moment chaos dishing-out, anybody can expect sudden trouble. There is a certain sense of fair, ahem, rather, completely random, exposure: equal opportunities to sudden unexpected ruin. Maybe a neutrino lands wrong on one of his brain cells or something.
Perhaps it is related to his incontinence and he gets mad when he wakes up soaking in a puddle of his own piss. As an old, abusive pervert he deserves to have his tiny penis fail him.
Sharts become a terror when you’re an old, fat dude full of greasy food and adderall.
The data is about to get worse, much worse, but Trump will fire anyone who reports them accurately.
The numbers will finally show that we have entered the promised Golden Age!
You can’t fight or reason with 5d (5 dimensions of dumb) thinking.
https://thedailyadda.com/trump-voter-hit-with-77k-tariff-on-german-machine-montana-knife-co-founder-feels-the-cost-of-trumps-trade-war/
“As President Donald Trump prepares to announce a new wave of tariff increases, American manufacturers are bracing for the financial fallout. For business owners like Josh Smith, founder of Montana Knife Co., the impact is already painfully clear. Smith recently purchased a $515,000 blade-grinding machine from Germany, which under Trump’s updated trade policies, will now carry an additional $77,250 in import taxes.”
You reap what you sow suckers.
It’s got nothing to do with Switzerland’s trade with the US and everything to do with geopolitics. Having lived through how Washington came down hard on Switzerland’s banks and financial institutions to make them tighten up on money laundering I see the same thing now except this time it’s not drug lords and mafia only. The target is Russia.
That was over a decade ago. I doubt trump even remembers it, except as an inconvenience to his money laundering operations.
Stablecoins and unregulated tokenization will provide a massive backdoor for money laundering, insider trading, and oh yeah, terrorist financing.
Do you know Trump’s age? Do you know what business he was in? Everyone in finance and business over 35 remembers vividly what happened because it affected them directly no matter what institution they worked for. You must be either early twenty-something or distant from the international business world. Which is it?
Do you know the air speed velocity of an un-laden sparrow?
Absolutely none of this, from your first post to the last, is relevant to what just happened to Switzerland. You’re just trying to throw up a smoke screen to defend your deity.
Again.
There ain’t enough smoke in the world to cover the stench this much bullshit. Give it up already. Go stick up for serial killers or something. You’ll get more traction.
That is all Doug ever does. He throws sh*t around. The guy says he had a career in finance, yet, based on his posts, he knows f*ck all about finance. He even thinks that other countries are paying the tariffs to US customs. That’s how dumb he is.
And don’t ever expect him to answer a question, because he doesn’t have the knowledge to answer it in a cogent manner. So he obfuscates by throwing shit around, and somehow believes he is being clever. While anyone with intelligence here realizes Doug has his tongue so far up Trump’s ass, he will never be able to see what’s actually going on.
I have only rhetorical questions for him. Sometimes I’ll feed him back some of his doublethink for amusement, but I don’t think he gets the joke.
It’s nice to have him around though. Most of these guys hang out in safe spaces where you get banned for hinting that maybe there might be something off about this trump guy. This is one of the few places I’ve found that isn’t an echo chamber for one side or the other.
Mish suffers fools, and it’s an important community service. It’s incredibly valuable to see how feckless and insane these people are. I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it here.
You are a bundle of laughs! You just mange your portfolio thinking that that makes you knowledgeable in finance. As I said before, you are like a mechanic that knows how to replace broken parts in a car but has no idea about how to make a car. You think that finance is not intertwined with international politics but it most intimately is whether you like it or not. You are a opportunist and like all opportunists you believe that money, especially your own, is the only thing that matters and because it is the only thing that matters to you you think that it is the same for everyone. Let me tell you something. It does not and that explains a lot what is going on in the world.
Like trafficking and raping children?
Like sending a billion dollars to the co-trafficker?
Like building a 200 million dollar gaudy-ass ballroom where a historic rose garden used to be?
Like taking nearly a billion dollars meant to modernize our nuclear arsenal and spending it on the ridiculous white elephant that the Quataris bribed him with?
Yeah, what a world, what a world!
You and PapaDave are peas in a pod.
Hahaha! You think other countries pay the tariffs! It’s clear you were not in Finance.
You are really out to lunch. You really don’t know what finance really is. You are confusing economic policy with finance which shows you do not know finance at all but only its outward aspects that you see on Bloomberg TV and such. You do not know the inner workings because you have never done any. You have only bought the end product.
Lol! You’re the moron who thinks other countries are paying tariffs to US customs!
If you were ever in Finance, you must have been a failure.
Russia was Trump’s buddy five seconds ago. Who will be his buddy five seconds from now? For how long?
For as long as they tell him he’s a pretty, pretty princess.
I would bet even money the Swiss were just unlucky enough to have their tariff decided immediately after another trump meltdown over some reporter asking him about Epstein.
If one were to know what was on the schedule, and watch for trumpletantrums, the info could likely be coalesced into stock tips. The only reliable thing about the guy is that he’s going to throw more tantrums, and punish anybody unlucky enough to be nearby.
If South Park could keep a schedule, we could make bank.
I have to admit the season opener of South Park was a masterpiece of adult humor!
Stewarts July 21st show was even better (excepting the silly ending).
They haven’t even touched Epstein yet. The first episode was a love tap.