Trump tariff rebuke, thoughts of a 100-year-old banker, and designer babies

The US Supreme Court. Keystone/Swissinfo

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

When former Swiss banker Yves Oltramare first travelled to the United States aged 25, Donald Trump was still a toddler. Now 100, Oltramare looks back on an extraordinary life, although he is concerned about the country that he used to love so much – it’s “not unrealistic”, in his view, that Trump will have a third term as president.

US President Donald Trump at a White House press briefing on Friday. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Unsurprisingly, the Swiss media welcomed the US Supreme Court’s decision to strike down US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs. A victory for democracy, they said – but global economic uncertainty wouldn’t suddenly disappear.

“For Donald Trump, this is a crushing blow, a magnitude 9 earthquake that he could well have done without less than nine months before the mid-term elections,” declared Le Temps in Geneva on Friday, a couple of hours after America’s highest court ruled that Congress, not the president, has the power to impose tariffs.

“Trump had warned that a negative decision by the Supreme Court would cause chaos. It probably will. However, the Court did not give in to blackmail,” the paper continued. “The Supreme Court’s ruling is a stark reminder that the Trump administration is increasingly ignoring the principles underpinning democracy. It’s a major blow to the breathtaking expansion of presidential power by the occupant of the White House, who no longer hides his authoritarian leanings.”

For the Supreme Court, enforcing the separation of powers was a question of credibility, according to Le Temps. “In effect, it is restoring to Congress the prerogatives that the Republicans, who have a majority on Capitol Hill, had abdicated.”

Will tariffs now disappear? Will repayments be made? Swiss newspapers didn’t dare make any predictions, but they were careful not to get too carried away.

“It would be naive to hope that global trade will return to its previous state. What’s more realistic is that the Democrats, should they return to power one day, will retain a significant proportion of the tariffs,” reckoned the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). “The US’s trading partners must be prepared for the fact that the tariffs will not disappear any time soon. But at least they know now that the US will remain a vital democracy – even under Donald Trump.”

The Tages-Anzeiger in Zurich agreed. “Despite the many unanswered questions, the Supreme Court’s judgement is of great importance. Until now, the majority of the [Supreme Court] judges had supported Trump on various issues. Now they are taking a stand against him – clearly, and of all things on a question that is central for the president.”

“For the US, it is a sign of hope,” the paper concluded. “For all those countries that were prepared to make deals with far-reaching concessions, the judgement should be a lesson. The rule of law is also defended by believing in it. If the countries – Switzerland included – had stood together against Trump’s questionable customs policy and taken the legal route instead of negotiating deals individually, they would be on the winning side today.”

• Coverage by SRFExternal link, RTSExternal link, RSIExternal link (German, French, Italian)

• America’s proclaimed dead democracy lives – even under Donald Trump – NZZ editorialExternal link (German, paywall)

• Trump hit by his own tariff hammer – Tages-Anzeiger editorialExternal link (German, paywall)

• Donald Trump’s resounding defeat – Le Temps editorialExternal link (French)

Yves Oltramare has seen the United States change considerably in his lifetime. RTS / Karine Vasinaro

Former Swiss banker Yves Oltramare has seen a lot in his 100 years. In an interview with Geneva newspaper Le Temps, he discusses Donald Trump and his concerns about the country he loved so much as a young man.

Oltramare was 25 when he left Geneva for the United States and arrived in the world of finance. He’s not exactly optimistic when asked how he sees the US today. “We’re not yet in a state of dictatorship. But there’s a risk that the United States will tend towards a form of theocracy,” he says.

“There needs to be a force with the power to contradict the president. Donald Trump’s system is astonishing, because it moves so fast that even the legislative branches can’t keep up. And since the legislature has no police to enforce the law, the laws are fragile. This situation is completely new, and quite serious in that the interests of the country are not being taken into account at all.”

A former partner at Swiss private bank Lombard Odier, Oltramare isn’t confident that the state and the law are still safeguards against this drift towards theocracy. “We’re no longer in that situation in the United States, since the law is no longer respected and the state is being challenged. In terms of technology, developments are happening so fast that there’s no time to establish legislation. This acceleration gives extraordinary power to those who dominate these technologies, because they can’t be punished or restrained,” he says.

“Up until now, governments have complied with the law, and the public has been there to check. Today, in the United States, the application of the law is random. This is a very new phenomenon. And until now, the Supreme Court has been terribly silent.”

So is the separation of powers in danger in the United States? “Yes, definitely. I think we’re going to see that in the elections this year [in November]. I’m not at all sure that Donald Trump is in any danger – it’s not unrealistic to think that he’ll have another term.”

The interview, which was published on Friday, also covers a range of issues including Oltramare’s spirituality (in 2012 he initiated a chair in religion and politics at the Geneva Graduate Institute), concerns about artificial intelligence, the vulnerabilities of democracy – and the secret to a long life.

• Interview with Yves OltramareExternal link – Le Temps (French, paywall)

Some start-ups are funding efforts to eradicate hereditary diseases – and improve intelligence. Keystone / Gaetan Bally

“Designer-Babys aus dem Silicon Valley” was the Swinglish headline in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), whose science podcast this week looked at the start-ups wanting to eradicate hereditary diseases – and improve intelligence.

“Genetic manipulation has piqued the interest of tech billionaires,” said the podcast, NZZ Quantensprung (quantum leap), on Friday. “They are funding companies that plan to intervene in the DNA of embryos. This could change not just one life, but the future of many generations.”

The podcast spoke to Canadian entrepreneur Cathy Tie – “a prodigy of the American biotech scene” – who at 18 dropped out of university to found a genetic testing company. Today, ten years after founding her first company, Tie wants to prevent hereditary diseases before birth and eradicate them for all generations to come – by genetically modifying babies.

“I would like to change the entire medical field,” she told Quantensprung. “I believe that it’s extremely outdated and doesn’t serve patients. I think there are better way to treat diseases before someone is born.”

The podcast pointed out that the stakes are high: there are more than 7,000 known hereditary diseases, including Huntington’s disease, sickle cell anaemia and hereditary cancers – and researchers want to defeat them. “But the new biotech tools have also aroused the interest of pronatalists in the US, a movement that campaigns for more and, in their view, optimised babies,” it said.

The podcast explained how several American start-ups, backed by billionaires from Silicon Valley, are planning to manipulate the DNA of human embryos – creating so-called designer babies – and improve the intelligence of future generations. “But if something goes wrong, the mistakes will be passed on to all descendants,” Quantensprung warned.

• The NZZ Quantensprung podcastExternal link (German)

• Desperate to save their children, parents become unexpected drug developers – Swissinfo

The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, March 4. See you then!

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