US President Donald Trump said he ordered an additional 9 percent tariff increase on Switzerland because he did not like "the way a Swiss leader addressed him" while calling on him to remove the tariff.
Trump, in an interview with Fox Business, said that the tone of Karin Keller-Sutter, a member of the Swiss Federal Council, whom he mistakenly called prime minister, was "repetitive" and "aggressive."
"I set tariffs at 30 percent, which is very low. Then I got an urgent call from, I believe, the prime minister of Switzerland, and she was very aggressive, but polite, but also very aggressive. She said, 'God, we're a small country. We can't do this. We can't do this.' I couldn't get her off the phone," he said.
He points out that Keller-Sutter constantly repeated that Switzerland is a small country, which, according to him, made him even more nervous.
"I couldn't get him off the phone, so it was 30 percent. And I didn't really like the way he spoke to us, so instead of reducing it, I increased it to 39 percent," the 79-year-old said.
Trump made similar comments a few weeks ago at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he indicated that he did not know whether Switzerland had a prime minister or a president.
"I assumed the prime minister, I don't know, the president, the prime minister had called, a woman. And she was very repetitious. She said, 'No, no, no, you can't do that, 30 percent. We're a small, small country.' But I said, 'You may be small, but you have a big deficit,'" the American leader emphasized.
Switzerland has no prime minister or executive president. Instead, the country is governed collectively by a seven-member Federal Council. However, U.S. and Swiss negotiators reached a preliminary agreement in November to lower the tariff to 15 percent, and Swiss industry pledged to invest $200 billion in the United States by the end of 2028. /Telegraph/
