WEF: Switzerland treads carefully with Trump as tariff deal looms

US President Donald Trump is due to arrive in Davos on Wednesday for a two-day visit to the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual gathering. Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

The Swiss government is expected to avoid sharp criticism of Donald Trump’s Greenland plans at the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos as it seeks to finalise a 15% tariff deal with the United States.

Meetings at the WEF annual meeting in Davos are sometimes very short, but high-profile. Swiss President Guy Parmelin was able to talk to French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday.

But the most important meetings for the Federal Council are due to come in the next two days with the delegation from the United States. The Swiss president is keen to finalise the 15% tariff agreement by the end of March.

“We want to negotiate this agreement to have a certain degree of certainty,” Parmelin told reporters in Davos. “Now we are ready to negotiate, and we want to see if the US is also ready.”

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was in Davos on Tuesday, gave a brief optimistic reaction on the tariff agreement with Switzerland: “The trade agreement between Switzerland and the US is on the right track and progressing very well.”

Could Switzerland also face higher tariffs?

Edward McMullen, who served as US ambassador to Switzerland during Trump’s first term and is currently in the Swiss mountain resort, told Swiss public broadcaster SRF that most of the points for a tariff agreement have already been negotiated, including the $200 billion (CHF158 million) commitments by Swiss companies to invest in the US. 

But after Trump’s recent tariff threats against key European Union countries over Greenland, is there a risk that the 15% rate for Switzerland might suddenly no longer apply?

“I hope not, because Switzerland is a neutral country that isn’t interfering in the Greenland debate,” McMullen said, adding that Greenland is an “extremely difficult issue”. 

Scepticism

Christoph Mäder, president of the Swiss Business Federation economiesuisse, has spoken to many businesspeople this week in Davos. The mood is said to be rather negative since Trump threatened additional tariffs against eight European countries – Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland – unless they support his plan to buy Greenland.

The US president said he would introduce a 10% levy on imports into the US on February 1, rising to 25% from the summer if no deal is done. 

Mäder believes that Switzerland’s prospects for a tariff agreement with the US are no longer so certain after Trump’s recent threats. The potential additional tariffs starting in February could also affect Swiss suppliers to companies in Germany and other affected EU countries.

“But it could also directly impact us if the general sentiment towards tariffs in Washington were to shift. This development is certainly not good,” said the economiesuisse president.

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SRF analysis: ‘One step further with the tariff agreement’

Brief assessment by SRF parliamentary correspondent Andy Müller: 

The government’s strategy for the next two days of the WEF is quite clear. They want to make progress on the tariff agreement with the US without antagonising Trump. This also means that the government is unlikely to criticise the US president’s Greenland plans.

But quite a few Swiss foreign policy experts are expecting a clear condemnation of Trump’s planned annexation of Greenland. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Swiss House of Representatives expressed this view today. 

The government is also unlikely to reject Trump’s invitation to his so-called “Board of Peace”, which many diplomats see as a counter-project to the United Nations.

Swiss President Guy Parmelin said the government intends to study this proposal more closely.

The government is clearly trying to avoid causing offence as much as possible in order to finalise the tariff agreement soon.