A record price of gold, criticism of US science policy – and the return of McCarthyism?

Keystone

Welcome to our first press review of events in the United States. Every week we’ll look at how the Swiss media have reported and reacted to three major stories in the US – in politics, finance and science.

Unsurprisingly the thread running through all three articles this week is US President Donald Trump, who continues to dominate the media cycle like no one before him. We look at a fascinating, if alarming, period of American history – the Red Scare of the 1950s – and ask whether it’s making a comeback. Plus we examine why the price of gold is rocketing, and why Trump’s efforts to transform the US scientific landscape are an “immensely serious problem” – also for Switzerland.

The return of McCarthyism?

Joseph McCarthy Keystone

Arrests, blacklists and deportations – is the United States under Donald Trump entering another era of McCarthyism, as some historians claim? Swiss public radio, SRF, looks at the evidence.

“First, a comparison is being made that is certainly plausible, and second, it invokes something that is anchored as a concept in US political rhetoric,” history professor Olaf Stieglitz told SRF on MondayExternal link.

Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957) was a Republican senator convinced that communists and Soviet spies and sympathisers had infiltrated the US government, universities, Hollywood and elsewhere. He led aggressive investigations into “un-American activities”, involving the political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals (Charlie Chaplin moved to Switzerland after McCarthy, incorrectly, labelled him a communist). Nowadays, McCarthyism is used more generally to describe reckless and unsubstantiated accusations of treason and far-left extremism, along with personal attacks on the character and patriotism of political adversaries.

Stieglitz saw a parallel to the 1940s and 1950s in the rhetoric used under Trump. “It’s about these accusations without verification, about slander, about denunciation,” he told SRF. He cited Trump’s insinuation that the Democratic Party is radical left-wing or that Antifa is a terrorist organisation. “These are accusations that overstep the mark. But if you keep repeating them, they become entrenched. It’s very reminiscent of the rhetorical strategies of the McCarthy era.”

But unlike back then, the US population is at a different point, according to Stieglitz. “During the Second World War, people were inculcated for years to think in terms of friend or foe. After the war, the rhetoric was able to follow on relatively seamlessly.” US society is certainly not like that today, he said.

Stieglitz pointed out that the accusation of resorting to McCarthyist rhetoric was levelled against the Biden administration in the US not so long ago. It was accused of censoring social media and of having a cancel culture. “This term is common – everyone associates something with it. It’s now so omnipresent that it can be used by any side,” he said.

However, Stieglitz makes a clear distinction. “I see what happened under Biden as being within the rough but common rules of democratic behaviour. This is no longer the playing field at the moment.” For Stieglitz, it’s clear that the tone in the US is not only becoming rougher, but also more undemocratic.

• Trump’s rhetoric: return of the McCarthy era?External link – SRF (German)

• What could Switzerland and the United States learn from each other today? – Swissinfo debate

Time to buy gold?

The value of gold has risen by 50% since the beginning of the year. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Gold cracked the historic $4,000 an ounce mark this week. How high will it go? Should you buy? And what does Donald Trump have to do with the boom? The Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich has the answers.

The price of gold broke through the $4,000 (CHF3,200) per troy ounce barrier for the first time on Tuesday. The value of the precious metal has risen by 50% since the beginning of the year.

This was not necessarily good news, the Tages-Anzeiger pointed out, since the price of gold, a safe-haven commodity, is pushed up by uncertainty, inflation, crises and war.

“One key trigger is Donald Trump’s erratic policies, which are upsetting the global markets. His trade wars with high punitive tariffs are causing uncertainty and fuelling fears of inflation,” the paper wrote on Tuesday. “Trump’s attacks on the US Federal Reserve and its chairman Jerome Powell are also playing an important role in the current rise in the price of gold.”

The US government believes that the dollar is overvalued, which penalises the exports of US companies. It therefore wants a weaker dollar. This is another reason why investors are looking for alternatives to the dollar – especially gold.

So, should you buy – or have you missed the boat? “Anything that rises sharply can also fall quickly,” the Tages-Anzeiger warns. “The ‘safe haven’ is heavily dependent on current events and future expectations and is correspondingly volatile.”

However, Thorsten Hens, professor of finance at the University of Zurich, says that even at $4,000 “gold belongs in your portfolio”. “But as with any other investment, you should build up your optimal position over a period of time so that you don’t get in too expensive,” he told the Tages-Anzeiger.

• The most important questions regarding the record price of oldExternal link – Tages-Anzeiger (German)

• Gold-digging: why some Swiss bury their wealth in the garden – Swissinfo

Nobel winner criticises US science policy

John Clarke on the phone after becoming one of the three scientists to win this year’s Nobel Prize in physics. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Donald Trump’s efforts to transform the scientific landscape in the United States are an “immensely serious problem”, says one of the winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in physics.

“Nobel physicist John Clarke deplores how Donald Trump’s policies are ‘paralysing’ science” was the headline in Geneva newspaper Le Temps on Wednesday.

Since his return to the White House in January, Trump’s science policy has resulted in drastic cuts in research funding and the mass firings of scientists in federal bodies. “This is going to paralyse a large part of scientific research in the United States,” Clarke told the AFP news agency, adding that he knew people who had suffered major cuts in their funding.

The 83-year-old British researcher, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday along with two other scientists for their discoveries in quantum mechanics, stressed that they themselves had benefited from significant resources at the time of their work, some four decades ago.

“It will be disastrous if this continues,” Clarke warned. “Assuming the current government finally comes to an end, it could take a decade to get back to where we were six months ago.”

Le Temps also reported that several Nobel Prize officials interviewed by AFP said that by attacking science in this way, Trump risked causing the US to lose its position as the leading nation in scientific research, with repercussions throughout the world.

Scientists and scientific institutions in Switzerland have also been affected by Trump’s policies. The articles below explain how.

• John Clarke comments on Trump’s science policy – Le TempsExternal link (French) and CashExternal link (German)

• Trump administration pressure on scientists reaches Switzerland – Swissinfo

• Why US health funding cuts are rattling Swiss science – Swissinfo

• Switzerland offers no lifeboat to US scientists – Swissinfo

The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, October 15. See you then!

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