{"id":119738,"date":"2026-08-24T12:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T12:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/119738\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T12:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T12:58:09","slug":"china-and-switzerland-have-a-new-tariff-scrapping-trade-deal-how-will-the-eu-react","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/119738\/","title":{"rendered":"China and Switzerland have a new tariff-scrapping trade deal. How will the EU react?"},"content":{"rendered":"

China and Switzerland have concluded negotiations on the scrapping of tariffs on 99.8 per cent of Swiss exports, with analysts saying the deal carries more symbolic than economic weight amid growing trade tensions between China and the European Union.<\/p>\n

The agreement was announced by the Swiss side on Thursday after a meeting in Bern between Commerce Minister Wang Wentao<\/a> and Swiss President Guy Parmelin. It will upgrade a 2014 free-trade agreement (FTA) under which only about half of Swiss exports to China were duty-free.<\/p>\n

Wang said in a statement that the new FTA would create new opportunities for bilateral economic cooperation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the current international environment filled with uncertainty, this also demonstrates the clear stance of both sides in choosing certainty and supporting free trade,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n

For Beijing, the upgrade was a way to show that \u201cclose economic integration with China remains possible and attractive\u201d for European countries, said Simona Grano, senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Zurich.<\/p>\n

The timing was also \u201cconvenient from Beijing\u2019s perspective\u201d, said Noah Barkin, senior adviser at Rhodium Group. \u201cIt sends a signal to the EU at a time of heightened trade tensions that reduced barriers are possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China and Switzerland have concluded negotiations on the scrapping of tariffs on 99.8 per cent of Swiss exports,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[28189,104,351,32207,865,8734,41,17,112,58452,714,57536,2759],"class_list":["post-119738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-beijing","tag-bern","tag-china","tag-duty-free","tag-european-union","tag-guy-parmelin","tag-swiss","tag-switzerland","tag-tariffs","tag-universal-declaration-of-human-rights","tag-us","tag-wang-wentao","tag-washington"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}