ZURICH, Feb 27 (Reuters) – The economy ministers of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein on Friday urged the United States \u200cto pursue stable trade relations and said it was \u200cvital to strengthen economic cooperation while uncertainty over U.S. policy persists.<\/p>\n
Speaking a week \u200bafter the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sweeping tariffs imposed last year by President Donald Trump, the ministers stressed the need to boost competitiveness and remove barriers to trade following a meeting in \u200cZurich.<\/p>\n
German Economy Minister Katherina \u2060Reiche said the export-oriented economies of the four German-speaking countries relied on stable trade relations and that \u2060tariffs were damaging both to international commerce and the U.S. economy.<\/p>\n
“The tariffs have simply led to higher consumer prices,” Reiche told reporters \u200bat a \u200bpress conference alongside her counterparts \u200bfrom the other three countries.<\/p>\n
Her \u200cSwiss counterpart Guy Parmelin, who is also the country’s president for 2026, said uncertainty over trading conditions was detrimental to business and that this would be part of Switzerland’s ongoing trade discussions with Washington.<\/p>\n
“The sooner the United States brings clarity, the better the \u200csituation will be for everyone,” Parmelin \u200bsaid. “That will then really be a \u200bwin-win situation and not \u200ba lose-lose one.”<\/p>\n
Austrian Economy Minister Wolfgang Hattmannsdorfer said while \u200cU.S. policy continued to be \u200berratic, it was \u200bvital for European economies to diversify and expand their market access.<\/p>\n
“We don’t need to be afraid of Donald Trump, and \u200bshouldn’t be,” Hattmannsdorfer \u200csaid. “Now’s the time for the European Union to act \u200bwith self-confidence and with clarity.”<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Dave Graham, editing by \u200bLinda Pasquini and Thomas Seythal)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZURICH, Feb 27 (Reuters) – The economy ministers of Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein on Friday urged the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[1342,14204,14205,593,17,9480,11334,74],"class_list":["post-21661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-austria","tag-german-economy-minister-katherina-reiche","tag-liechtenstein","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-switzerland","tag-trade-relations","tag-u-s-supreme-court","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21661","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=21661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}