‘Don’t like the way she talked’: How a phone call from the Swiss leader led Trump to hike tariffs to 39%

President of the United States Donald Trump Revealing the real reason behind Switzerland’s huge rise in import tariffs, it all comes down to a phone call. According to Trump, a phone call from Swiss leader Karin Keller-Sutter, whom he incorrectly referred to as the Swiss prime minister, dramatically changed the course of events. In an exclusive interview with Fox Business News, he said the way she spoke to his administration changed everything. Trump described Keller-Satter as “very aggressive, but very friendly,” mistakenly referring to Keller-Satter as the Swiss prime minister and saying she had repeatedly argued that Switzerland was too small to withstand high tariffs.The call, he said, convinced him not only to keep the original tax levy but to raise it further.“I really don’t like the way she talks to us,” Trump said in the interview.“So instead of lowering her ratio, I raised it to 39 percent.”

Since then, Trump has laid out his broader view of the Swiss-U.S. trade relationship, arguing that Bern benefits from minimal tariffs while Washington runs a huge deficit.“I had an incident in Switzerland, a very good country,” he said.“They’re not paying tariffs and they’re shipping stuff here, which no one believes. We have a $42 billion deficit. We’re getting nothing.”Trump said he believed action was needed to close the gap, even if only gradually.“I said, OK, we have to do something because we have to balance it out a little bit. I don’t need to get everything at once,” he said, explaining that he first imposed a 30 percent tariff.Trump called the level “very low” and claimed it still roughly cut the imbalance in half but did not solve the problem.He then described a phone call from Keller-Satter in which she repeatedly emphasized the size of Switzerland.“She was very combative, but well, but very combative. ‘Sir, we’re a small country. We can’t do this. We can’t do this,'” Trump said.“I couldn’t get her to hang up and I said, you may be a small country, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you.”Trump added that after raising tariffs, he felt inundated with follow-up publicity from Swiss officials and business people, prompting him to consider adjustments later. He also extended his criticism beyond Switzerland.“They are doing this because we allow them to rip off and make so much money,” he said. He called the Alpine country “super chic, super perfect,” before adding, “I could say the same thing about 40 other countries. Some are even worse.”Trump’s comments echoed those he made earlier in January during the Davos summit.Trump said he had agreed to lower Swiss tariffs from 39% to 15% under pressure from Swiss companies such as Rolex, while warning that tariffs could rise again.“I reduced it because I didn’t want to hurt people. But that doesn’t mean it won’t go up,” Trump said at the time.Trump also defended sweeping tariff increases in several countries, saying Switzerland took advantage of low or zero interest rates.