Push to Finalize Swiss-U.S. Trade Agreement<\/p>\n
ZURICH, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Swiss industry association Swissmem on Friday urged Switzerland to finalize a preliminary trade deal with Washington in order to create legal certainty, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down President Donald Trump’s tariffs.<\/p>\n
Tariff Background: 39% Import Duty<\/p>\n
Switzerland was subject to the highest U.S. tariffs in Europe when Trump imposed a 39% import duty on its exporters’ products in August. In November, Bern secured an initial deal that cut the tariffs to 15%, mirroring the rate for the European Union.<\/p>\n
Talks and Timeline to Formalize Deal<\/p>\n
Switzerland has since begun talks to formalize that agreement, which Washington has been pressing to conclude by the end of the first quarter. <\/p>\n
Call for Legal Certainty<\/p>\n
Swissmem said the government would be well advised to turn that preliminary accord into a legally binding deal.<\/p>\n
Rationale Despite Court Ruling<\/p>\n
“This is because it is to be expected that the Trump administration will invoke other laws to legitimize tariffs,” Swissmem said in a statement after the court’s ruling.<\/p>\n
Swiss Government Response<\/p>\n
Separately, the Swiss government said that it would analyze further developments and specific impacts of the Supreme Court decision.<\/p>\n
Mechanical & Electrical Sector Hit<\/p>\n
Export Impact on Industry<\/p>\n
Swissmem said the Swiss mechanical and electrical engineering sector posted an 18% drop in exports to the U.S. during the final quarter of last year amid the tariff hit.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Dave Graham, editing by Friederike Heine and Thomas Seythal)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Push to Finalize Swiss-U.S. Trade Agreement ZURICH, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Swiss industry association Swissmem on Friday urged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[10389,10388,10390,10386,41,10387,10384,17,10383,319,10385],"class_list":["post-14348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-15-tariff-accord","tag-39-swiss-tariffs","tag-bern-washington-trade-talks","tag-supreme-court-tariff-ruling","tag-swiss","tag-swiss-exports-to-us","tag-swissmem","tag-switzerland","tag-switzerland-us-trade-deal","tag-trump-tariffs","tag-us-tariffs-on-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14348","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=14348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}