Swiss Face 72-Hour Race to Lower Trump’s ‘Absurd’ 39% Tariff

The Swiss celebrate Swiss national day in Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025. Donald Trump will impose a 39% tariff on imports from Switzerland, one of the steepest levies globally which threaten to leave the country's key exports reeling. Photo by Andrew Kravchenko /Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — The Swiss government held crisis talks on Monday in an effort to come up with a proposal that might persuade US President Donald Trump from imposing 39% tariffs on the country in less than three days.

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With the rate — the highest among industrial nations — set to go into effect on Aug. 7, President and Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter convened an emergency meeting of the governing Federal Council on Monday to discuss how to proceed. 

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Separately, negotiators with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs have reached out to their US counterparts to try and find a way forward. The agency, which hammered out a far more favorable tentative deal with the US more than a month ago, also held a briefing with business leaders on Monday.

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Keller-Sutter, who was criticized in the Swiss press over the weekend for allowing Trump to blindside her without a backup plan, said she would be willing to make a last-minute trip to Washington if she thought there was a chance a deal could be made.

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“I don’t rule out such a visit, but first, the two sides should come closer together in their positions,” she told the newspaper Schweiz am Wochenende. It’s not clear what, if any, response there has been from the US government.

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“It’s unfortunate that the Swiss took so much time” to react, says Thomas Borer, a former Swiss diplomat who now runs his own consulting firm, echoing the criticism made in the press.

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Despite the backlash, the Swiss president doesn’t face any immediate danger of losing her job. The system is designed for continuity, and the presidency rotates on an annual basis, meaning her term running the country will come to a close at the end of the year.

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The Trump administration justified Friday’s move by claiming that Switzerland had in essence stolen money from the US and should therefore be hit with a tariff rate commensurate with the trade deficit — a notion Ketter-Sutter dismissed as “absurd.”

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Switzerland ran a $38 billion bilateral trade surplus with the US last year, according to US Census data, which was the 13th biggest for the world’s largest economy. While Swiss exports to the US collapsed after the introduction of tariffs in April, they rebounded in June, suggesting that trade between the two countries remained robust.

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What Bloomberg Economics Says…

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“We estimate that this represents a tariff shock of around 23 percentage points for the Swiss economy, putting roughly 1% of its GDP at risk over the medium term.”

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-Jean Dalbard, economist. For full React, click here

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There are not many routes available to Switzerland, but one is to offer to buy liquefied natural gas from the US. While the landlocked country is focused on hydroelectric and nuclear power, it does use a small amount of gas, primarily in the winter to cushion swings in its energy supply. Should Switzerland choose to import more gas, it would have to travel through neighboring countries, which could potentially increase transit costs.