{"id":263,"date":"2026-02-11T09:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T09:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/263\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T09:48:08","slug":"didnt-like-the-way-she-talked-how-a-phone-call-pushed-trump-to-hit-switzerland-with-39-tariffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/263\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Didn\u2019t like the way she talked\u2019: How a phone call pushed Trump to hit Switzerland with 39% tariffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump sharply raised tariffs on Swiss imports following a tense phone call with Swiss leader Karin Keller-Sutter<\/a>. \u201cI didn\u2019t really like the way she talked to us, so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 percent,\u201d Trump said. He had mistakenly referred to Keller-Sutter as Switzerland<\/a>\u2019s Prime Minister; in reality, she is a member of the Swiss Federal Council.<\/p>\n

In an exclusive Fox Business interview, Trump explained that Switzerland had long benefited from negligible tariffs while exporting goods to the US, contributing to a $42 billion trade deficit.
Also Read: US tariffs on India jumps 6x to 18%, Rahul Gandhi slams trade deal with Donald Trump<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, I had an incident with a very nice country, Switzerland. They were paying no tariffs when sending stuff over here — like nobody could believe it — and we had a $42 billion deficit. We weren\u2019t taking anything, and I said, \u2018We have to do something, because we have to even that up a little bit.\u2019 I didn\u2019t have to get anything all at once, so I put on a 30% tariff, which was too low. Still, we were having a big deficit, but it was half the deficit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"ETLive Events
The situation heated up after a phone call from Keller-Sutter, whom Trump mistakenly called Switzerland\u2019s Prime Minister.
\u201cShe was very aggressive but nice, very aggressive. She said, \u2018Sir, we are a small country. We can’t do this. We can’t do this.\u2019 I couldn’t get her off the phone,\u201d Trump recalled. Despite her repeated insistence that Switzerland was \u201csmall, small,\u201d Trump held firm: \u201cYou may be a small country, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you.\u201dFrustrated by what he described as the Swiss leader\u2019s tone, Trump said he decided not to grant a reduction but instead raise the tariff to 39 percent. \u201cYou know Switzerland, you think of it as ultra-chic, ultra-perfect. They are not. They are only that because we allow them to rip us off and make all this money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Also Read: PM Modi surrendered before Trump, sold Mother India for trade deal, Rahul Gandhi says<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump framed the episode as part of a larger battle against countries exploiting low US tariffs. \u201cI could say the same thing with another 40 countries. Some are much more egregious,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Despite the rhetoric, US and Swiss negotiators eventually struck a deal in November to lower the tariff to 15 percent, with Swiss firms committing $200 billion in investments in the US by 2028. <\/p>\n

Earlier in January, during the Davos Summit, Trump said the tariff reduction came after pressure from Swiss companies, including Rolex, but he left open the possibility that the rates could rise again. \u201cI reduced it because I don\u2019t want to hurt people. Doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not going up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump sharply raised tariffs on Swiss imports following a tense phone call with Swiss leader…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[318,21,17,314,315,319,313,317,316],"class_list":{"0":"post-263","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-switzerland","8":"tag-fox-business-interview-trump","9":"tag-karin-keller-sutter","10":"tag-switzerland","11":"tag-switzerland-us-trade-deficit","12":"tag-trump-phone-call-switzerland","13":"tag-trump-tariffs","14":"tag-trump-tariffs-on-switzerland","15":"tag-us-switzerland-trade-relations","16":"tag-us-tariffs-increase"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","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=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}