Swiss economists expect slower growth due to US tariffs
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Swiss economists expect slower growth due to US tariffs
The Swiss economy is not gaining momentum, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said on Thursday, pointing to United States President Donald Trump's tariffs as the culprit.
+ Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The federal government’s group of economic experts is forecasting growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) of 1.3% for 2025 and 0.9% for 2026. These are significantly below-average figures.
The economists believe that the current second half of 2025 will be particularly weak. This is because the trade policy environment is now particularly challenging for Switzerland.
+ Tariffs dampen Swiss economic growth prospects
SECO points to the high US tariffs of 39% imposed by the Trump administration in August. Because comparatively lower tariffs apply to most of the US’s other trading partners, the competitiveness of Swiss exporters on the US market has deteriorated. SECO describes this as a “heavy burden”. The ongoing uncertainty is slowing down the economy.
According to SECO, the weak growth will cause unemployment to rise. An average rate of 2.9% unemployment is still predicted for 2025 and 3.2% for 2026.
More
US tariffs force Switzerland to rethink trade ties
All of these forecasts are based on the assumption that tariffs will remain at their current level.
As for inflation, SECO expects a stable development. Prices are likely to rise by 0.2% in the current year (previously +0.1%). But it retains the inflation forecast for 2026 (+0.5%).
Translated from German with DeepL/gw
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 english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.