US says Switzerland at ‘front of queue’ for trade deal

Tariffs: Washington puts Switzerland "at the front of the queue" of countries Keystone-SDA

Switzerland’s good offices between the United States and China appear to have been largely positive for the federal government. On Monday in Geneva, Washington suggested that Bern had made good progress in the dialogue on tariffs, unlike the EU.

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“Britain and Switzerland have been at the front of the queue for a trade deal, while the EU has been much slower,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters. London reached an agreement as early as last Thursday,

This success prompted Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter to state clearly that Switzerland should be “among the next”, perhaps even the second. On Saturday, Bessent seemed to want to move even faster than Switzerland. Whereas Keller-Sutter, who is also the Swiss Finance Minister, said that a declaration of intent would be delivered to Washington in “one to two weeks”, her counterpart expects it by Sunday.

Switzerland is one of the main investors in the US. “This is incredible for an economy of nine million people”, said the Treasury Secretary on Monday.

Content in Geneva

Bessent hopes that Switzerland will export its business training programmes to the US as the country seeks to re-industrialise. “The United States has a lot to learn from Switzerland,” insisted Bessent, who on Saturday put forward the figure of $150-00 billion in new Swiss investment that could come to the US.

And the decor of the residence of the Swiss ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Jürg Lauber, a plush villa in Cologny, in canton Geneva, did not leave the United States without a reaction either. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer added that the Swiss authorities’ welcome “made it incredibly easy to conclude the talks we had this weekend” with China.

“The most important discussions on the most difficult issues” took place outdoors, with a formidable view of Lake Geneva, he said. According to Greer, this arrangement encouraged personal links with Chinese interlocutors.

Translated from French by DeepL/jdp

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