Trump’s headwear psychoanalysed, ICE agents at airports, and Iran oil sanctions

An attendee at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Hadrian submarine facility in Alabama on March 20. 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.

Does the wearing of MAGA caps reflect a “widespread infantilisation of American society”, as one Swiss writer reckoned this week?

Plus, the unclear role of ICE agents at US airports, and Donald Trump’s temporary easing of sanctions on Iranian oil.

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 link]

An ICE agent monitors passengers in long security lines at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Monday. Keystone

“Chaos is inevitable,” Swiss newspaper Blick sighed on Tuesday, the day after hundreds of officers from the controversial immigration agency ICE began deploying at airports across the country struggling with staff shortages.

“It was only recently that Donald Trump’s masked ICE agents were spreading fear and terror in Minneapolis and other US cities,” Blick wrote (see previous press review). “Since Monday the armed migrant hunters have had a new task: providing security at American airports.”

Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported how there have been queues at airports across the country for days. “Passengers in Atlanta, Houston and New York, for example, waited for hours over the weekend for TSA screening and missed their flights despite allowing plenty of time,” it wrote on Sunday.

The decision to send ICE to airports is the result of “a dangerous bottleneck in the US security apparatus”, Blick said. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose roughly 65,000 employees screen all air travellers at America’s 450 airports, hasn’t been paid for 38 days, Blick explained. Like ICE, the TSA is part of the Department of Homeland Security, whose budget is being blocked by the Democrats until far-reaching changes are made to ICE, including no more face coverings, no more arbitrary arrests and no more racial profiling.

“For more than a month now, flight security employees have had to work without pay,” Blick continued. “A good 400 have quit their jobs, thousands are staying away from work. At New York’s JFK Airport, 29% of TSA employees called in sick on Friday. At the regional Hobby Airport in Houston, the figure was as high as 52%.”

Part of the problem, SRF said, was that it remained unclear exactly what the ICE officers are supposed to do at the airports. “It also remained unclear initially whether they would be deployed at all US airports or only at those with particularly long queues or chaotic conditions.”

What is clear, according to Blick, is that “chaos reigns” at America’s airports just a few months before the football World Cup and the celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. “Hours of waiting, queues out to the car parks, thousands of missed flights. It sounds like a bad joke that the controversial ICE agents of all people are supposed to ease the situation.”

• How to get past the ICE agents when entering the USExternal link – Blick (German)

• Report by SRFExternal link (German)

• ICE will be deployed to major airportsExternal link – Le Matin (French)

The Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas is transported. Keystone

On Friday US President Donald Trump eased sanctions on Iranian oil for 30 days to ease energy supply pressures. This decision highlights Trump’s Achilles heel, according to one Swiss newspaper.

“If proof were needed that this war has slipped away from the Trump administration, it’s there now,” the Tages-Anzeiger said on Sunday. “The decision to ease the sanctions shows desperation, perhaps even panic. If Trump doesn’t succeed in getting oil and gas prices under control, the electorate won’t forgive him.”

The Zurich newspaper reminded its readers that just a few days earlier Trump had mocked Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran – “maybe the worst deal I’ve ever seen” – which included the easing of sanctions and gave Iran access to blocked assets. In return, Iran had to limit uranium enrichment and allow inspections. “Trump ended that deal, preferring to solve the problems by military means. However, after three weeks of war, the US president now finds himself forced to ease sanctions against a wartime opponent. Without anything in return.”

On Tuesday the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) said that by easing oil sanctions against Tehran, Trump had highlighted the US’s greatest vulnerability. “Militarily, the US is vastly superior to Iran. However, Trump’s Achilles heel is the economy. The economic consequences of the war have always been rightly regarded as a risk that is difficult to calculate. The government’s expectation that Iran would not retaliate by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas is transported, was naive.”

The price of oil had risen by more than 50% since the start of the war, the NZZ said, which was why Trump was trying to reverse the trend with daily announcements on his Truth Social platform. “But in doing so, he often contradicts himself, causing prices to go on a rollercoaster ride,” it said.

“One moment Trump sees the end of the war approaching; the next, he orders thousands more elite troops to the Gulf. One moment he issues an ultimatum to the mullahs to clear the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to bomb Iranian power stations otherwise; two days later, he extends the ultimatum […] by a full five days, claiming there have been positive talks with Iran – a claim Iran immediately denied.”

On the oil and gas markets, this back-and-forth is not easing tensions but causing further uncertainty, the NZZ said. “Price rises on the oil market in particular are becoming a political problem for Trump, as the consequences also affect the US and thus his voters. The price rise will drive up the cost of other goods and fuel inflation. This will not please parts of the MAGA movement and reduces Trump’s chances in the mid-term elections this autumn,” it said.

“Trump wanted to secure his legacy in Iran,” the Tages-Anzeiger concluded. “He wanted to go down in history as a president who achieved something great. Something that no one before him had dared to do. Perhaps he will go down in history – as a president who did something very stupid.”

• Now the US is financing its adversaryExternal link – Tages-Anzeiger commentary (German, paywall)

• By easing oil sanctions against Tehran, Trump confirms the US’s greatest weaknessExternal link – NZZ comment (German, paywall)

• Live ticker on war in IranExternal link – Tribune de Genève (French)

Donald Trump salutes the flag-draped coffin of a US soldier killed in Kuwait at Dover Air Force Base on March 7. Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

“A psychoanalysis of Trump’s cap” was the eye-catching headline of an article in Le Temps on Monday. Metin Arditi, a Swiss author and UNESCO Special Envoy for Intercultural Dialogue, reckons the headwear makes the US president look like a “prematurely aged teenager”.

“The baseball cap has a sympathetic side – or a pathetic one,” Arditi wrote in his weekly column in which he gripes about things that irritate him. It all depends, he said, on whether it’s worn “by a kid from Brooklyn, backwards (thumbing his nose at the adult world), or by a hefty quasi-octogenarian, walking unsteadily and jutting his head forward”.

Arditi said Trump’s caps, at least the best-known ones, come in two varieties. There’s the red MAGA one – “now a symbol of Trumpian ideology” – worn everywhere by the president’s supporters, revealing, according to Arditi, “a widespread infantilisation of American society”.

And then there’s the white one, embroidered “USA” in gold letters, that Trump wore on March 7 at Dover Air Force Base, as he received the remains of the first six American soldiers killed in the war in Iran. “Custom dictates that in such circumstances, one should remove one’s hat. This was the case for all the civilians present at the ceremony. Wearing his cap in the middle of the gathering, Mr Trump gave the pathetic image of a prematurely aged teenager.”

Arditi noted that in its delayed report, Fox News, “historically an ally of Mr Trump”, replaced the images of the capped president with clips from another report in which he appeared bareheaded – “before apologising on air for having mixed up the videos ‘inadvertently’”.

“The day may not be far off when the most powerful man on the planet wears his cap backwards,” he concluded.

• ‘A psychoanalysis of Trump’s cap’External link – Le Temps (French, paywall)

The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, April 1. 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!