Lower US tariffs likely in December: Swiss minister

Lower tariffs likely to come into force from December, according to Federal Councillor Parmelin Keystone-SDA

Swiss economics minister Guy Parmelin hopes to see reduced United States tariffs from the beginning of December.

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“In Switzerland, we are ready”, Parmelin told Swiss public broadcaster SRF. In the US, it will take a little more time.

A week ago, Switzerland and the US signed a joint declaration of intent to reduce the punitive tariffs from 39% to 15%. The agreement was “no triumph” for Parmelin. “But we now have a clarified situation. That’s good for stability,” he said.

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“What we did was realpolitik,” Parmelin added. For a small, export-orientated country with only nine million inhabitants, this was “absolutely necessary”.

Parmelin rejected criticism that Switzerland had made too many concessions for the agreement. So far there has only been a declaration of intent. “Now we have to negotiate,” he said.

Switzerland could also demand certain things. For example, it could say that it wants more exemptions from customs duties. This will all be part of future negotiations.

Parmelin also once again denied the suspicion that Swiss entrepreneurs had access to secret information such as the draft agreement. “I must make it clear that they have never received a secret or confidential document,” he said.

The government was and remains solely responsible for the negotiations. Prior to their meeting with Trump, the business leaders had merely been provided with public statistics and informed about the status of discussions with the US.

Translated from German by DeepL/mga

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