Exploding tempers, tariffs and rockets

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket explodes at Cape Canaveral on May 28. NASASpaceflight.com / AFP /Swissinfo

Welcome to our press review of events in the United States. Every Wednesday we look at how the Swiss media have reported and reacted to three major stories in the US – in politics, finance and science.

In another eventful week, Swiss headlines were once again filled with news that the Trump administration wants to impose further tariffs on some 60 trading partners, including Switzerland. However, few scenes were as dramatic as Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket blowing up on the launch pad in Florida.

Help us improve the press review
As a reader of our weekly press review, your feedback is important to us. Please take two minutes to answer a short survey and help us improve our journalism. This survey is anonymous and all data is confidential.
👉 [Take the surveyExternal linkExternal linkExternal link]

Those were the days: Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Donald Trump walk into Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in December 2025. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are a “duo in crisis” who won’t emerge unscathed from the war they launched together against Iran, reckons Le Temps.

“Now that’s what we call getting a broadside,” the Geneva newspaper said in an editorial on Tuesday. On Monday evening, Trump called Netanyahu “and the discussion was electric”, Le Temps said. “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” Trump fumed, according to US website AxiosExternal link, before shouting down the phone: “What the fuck are you doing?”

“What was the Israeli prime minister doing?” Le Temps asked. “War. Just like every day for the past two years and eight months.” But on Monday his army was bombing Beirut after extending its operations into southern Lebanon. This, the newspaper explained, was bad timing for Trump, who is in the middle of negotiations with Iran, which is making an agreement conditional on a truce in Lebanon.

“The US President no longer wants his war with Tehran,” it said. “The Iranian negotiators have been making his team sweat for weeks; he himself seems exasperated, repeating in every tone that an agreement is close. But nothing solid seems to be forthcoming.”

Does this mean that the duo is turning into a duel, Le Temps wondered. “Not so fast – no sooner had Donald Trump’s outburst passed than Washington gave Israel the green light to bomb … the southern suburbs of Beirut, if Hezbollah attacked. This was a way of bringing the Israeli-American relationship back to basics, after the storm of the previous day. Is the relationship complicated? Certainly. Stormy? At times. Solid? Always. No matter how angry the phone calls.”

• Editorial in Le TempsExternal link (French, paywall)

• Coverage of the phone call in the Tages-AnzeigerExternal link (German, paywall), Le MatinExternal link (French), TicinonlineExternal link (Italian)

In April 2025 Switzerland featured near the top of a US chart of reciprocal tariffs. Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

“With Donald Trump, no sooner are tariffs imposed than more follow,” the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) sighed on Wednesday, after the Trump administration had proposed fresh punitive tariffs on around 60 trading partners, including Switzerland.

Washington accuses the countries involved of failing to do enough to tackle imports of goods produced using forced labour, Swiss public broadcaster SRF explained. According to a report published by US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, Switzerland is one of 54 economies that the US doesn’t consider to have an explicit import ban on such goods. Washington is proposing additional tariffs of 12.5% for these countries.

The EU would be burdened with 10% because, although it has introduced a corresponding ban, its enforcement is considered insufficient. Other countries facing a 10% tariff include the UK and Canada. Products such as semiconductors, coffee, beef and fruit would be exempt from the new duties, SRF reported.

For its part, the Swiss business federation Economiesuisse on Wednesday dismissed US claims of forced labour against Switzerland as “completely unfounded”. Swiss law clearly prohibits forced labour, said the group’s chief economist Rudolf Minsch, adding that the new tariff threats from Washington came as no surprise. Economiesuisse had expected Trump to look for new ways to keep some tariffs in place. Minsch said this was an attempt to replace duties that had previously been imposed under emergency law but were later struck down by the US Supreme Court, which said tariff-setting is generally the responsibility of Congress.

The latest proposals have yet to be finalised. A consultation will run until early July, followed by public hearings.

• Coverage of the latest tariff development – SRFExternal link, BlickExternal link (German), Le TempsExternal link, 24heuresExternal link (French), Corriere del TicinoExternal link (Italian)

• What do the latest US tariffs mean for Switzerland?External link – Neue Zürcher Zeitung (German, paywall)

• Swiss business federation rejects US forced labour claims as ‘unfounded’ – news via Swissinfo

• US tariffs force Switzerland to rethink trade ties – Swissinfo, September 2025

The Blue Origin New Glenn rocket ready for launch on April 18. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

The explosion of Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket is throwing NASA’s lunar plans into disarray, says the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), pointing out that the US military is also concerned.

“I think we have a good chance.” US President Donald Trump still sounded optimistic on April 29, when asked whether American astronauts would return to the Moon before the end of his second term in 2028. “A month later, that positive mood is likely to have evaporated, or at least been slightly dampened,” the NZZ wrote on Wednesday.

Last Thursday a huge fireball lit up the sky from the Cape Canaveral spaceport in Florida. “That was all that remained of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket,” the NZZ wrote. During an engine test, the new rocket exploded on the launch pad. The rocket was unmanned and was not carrying any payload. “But the damage was still immense. This is because Blue Origin’s New Glenn plays a key role in NASA’s plans to deliver equipment for a lunar base – and perhaps even astronauts – to the Moon by 2028.”

The explosion didn’t merely result in the loss of a launch vehicle worth several hundred million dollars, the Zurich newspaper noted. “Blue Origin must also come to terms with the destruction of the only launch pad from which the New Glenn can take off. This development is likely to set the company back by at least a year.”

This is a major problem for NASA’s lunar plans, it continued, because the Blue Origin rockets were due to deliver rovers and other equipment for the construction of a lunar base to the Moon this autumn. The New Glenn was also due to launch Blue Origin’s lunar lander into low Earth orbit as part of the Artemis 3 mission in 2027, to test docking with the Orion capsule, which is intended to bring NASA astronauts back to Earth after the lunar landing.

“The failure of New Glenn is also bad news for the US military,” the NZZ continued. “At present, the US Space Force relies on three rocket companies to transport military satellites into space. Alongside SpaceX, these are Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. However, ULA is also currently unable to carry out any rocket launches – its Vulcan rocket suffered a malfunction in February, which is still under investigation.”

“The destruction of Blue Origin’s launch site is therefore very ill-timed,” the NZZ concluded.

• Coverage of Blue Origin explosion on SRFExternal link, RTSExternal link and RSIExternal link (German, French, Italian)

• Report by the NZZExternal link (German, paywall)

The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, June 10. See you then!

If you have any comments or feedback, email [e-mail]

Stay informed with our weekly newsletter!

Are you looking for a simple way to stay updated on US-related news from a Swiss perspective?

Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and receive concise summaries of the most important political, financial, and scientific stories in the United States, as reported by Switzerland’s leading media outlets – delivered straight to your inbox.

👉Sign up by entering your email address in the form below!