Tariff gloom weighs on Swiss companies

US President Donald Trump's tariffs have caused huge uncertainties for the global economy. Keystone-SDA

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in Switzerland are extremely pessimistic about ongoing geopolitical tensions and US President Donald Trump's tariff policy, according to a survey.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

A barometer of business sentiment among SMEs, compiled by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences, revealed an overall index of -6.3 points in 2025, the lowest level since it was created. Last year, it stood at 0.6 points. This value reflects a high level of insecurity among SMEs over the next twelve months, say the survey authors.

The effects of current US economic policies are being felt particularly sharply among SMEs. According to the survey, they are weighing on export expectations and on investment and purchasing decisions. Almost 60% of the companies surveyed consider their growth prospects to be more negative as a result of Trump’s tariff policy.

Growing geopolitical instability and concerns about the reliability of global supply chains reinforce the general scepticism. Half of those surveyed also expect a deterioration in legal regulations (53%) and a negative trend in the reliability of supply chains (54%).

But a majority of SMEs (56%) continue to believe that their own competitiveness will improve. However, this is also currently a downward trend.

Reorientation towards Europe

In response to geopolitical upheaval, many Swiss SMEs are reorienting their international presence. Europe is gaining in importance over the US and China, both as a production location and as a market. Almost two-thirds see Europe as an attractive alternative to the US.

At the same time, there is a growing demand for Europe and Switzerland to position itself more strongly in terms of security and foreign policy, including increased investment in defence and IT security. Nearly 90% of those surveyed believe that Europe should invest more in military security. The figure for Switzerland is just over 80%.

Strong resilience of SMEs

The medium-term outlook is also marked by uncertainty. Much depends on the development of international relations, particularly with Washington.

It is crucial to know to what extent Swiss SMEs are able to adapt strategically to the new global framework conditions and develop their resilience in an increasingly multipolar world economy.

According to the barometer, companies rate their own resilience as relatively high. They have also demonstrated their resilience on several occasions in recent years.

The survey was conducted between 4 and 23 April among the managers of 519 Swiss companies. Only responses from SMEs were taken into account for this barometer.

Translated from French by DeepL/sb

How we use technology to translate

We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication. 

Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.

If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at [e-mail]