Swiss President to See Rubio as Trump Meeting Still Unclear

This content was published on August 6, 2025 - 14:30

3 minutes

(Bloomberg) — Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter will meet Secretary of State Marco Rubio on her emergency trip to lower the US’s 39% tariff, while it remains unclear if she will also get to see President Donald Trump.

Rubio’s schedule for Wednesday shows a 10:15 a.m. meeting in Washington with Keller-Sutter, though it didn’t provide any further details. The US Secretary of State’s department doesn’t lead negotiations for bilateral deals.

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The Swiss president dashed to the US capital Tuesday in a last-minute attempt to prevent her American counterpart from imposing the highest tariff of any developed nation on Switzerland. Trump announced the measure last week, and it’s set to take effect Thursday — leaving the Swiss with a tight window to try to sway him.

Keller-Sutter traveled to America without a formal invite from the White House, according to a person familiar with the matter, so it remains to be seen whether Trump will agree to meet.

The two spoke on the phone last Thursday, with Trump telling CNBC that “the woman was nice, but she didn’t want to listen” to his complaint about Switzerland’s massive trade surplus with the US.

Commenting on X on Wednesday, Keller-Sutter said she “met with high-ranking Swiss business representatives in Washington to discuss the tariff situation.”

Asked about the latest on Switzerland, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said that “I’m not aware of any changes since yesterday, but it’s a fast moving thing.”

“You know, we’ve got Switzerland coming in and trying to renegotiate their tariffs, and we’ll see how it goes,” he told Fox Business.

The level of Trump’s tariff stunned the Swiss after talks that they thought looked promising. If the tariff rate came into effect across the board — including on pharmaceuticals — that would put up to 1% of Switzerland’s economic output at risk over the medium term, according to Bloomberg Economics.

The paradox faced by the Swiss president — who also is her country’s finance minister — is that any concessions may be politically costly without meaningfully curbing the US-Switzerland trade gap.

The $38 billion overhang as of last year is probably the main obstacle to any deal. The nature of the massive Swiss surplus with the US — primarily down to gold, pharmaceuticals, watches and medical devices — means a quick reduction is unlikely.

Buying fighter planes from the US is one of Switzerland’s negotiating chips and given that Rubio currently also is interim national security adviser that topic could come up in his Wednesday meeting with Keller-Sutter.

Switzerland already agreed to purchase 36 F-35A jets from Lockheed Martin Corp. for its air force, though the two countries are currently tussling over the price tag.

Accepting a higher charge than the initially floated 6 billion francs ($7.4 billion) — something the US is pushing for — and possibly symbolically ordering one or two more planes, could help convince Trump, given how arms purchases featured in his other trade deals.

–With assistance from Jenny Leonard and Kasia Klimasinska.

(Updates with Keller-Sutter, Hasset starting in sixth paragraph)