US-Canada trade war escalates, 9/11 25 years on, and a medical first involving a pig
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.
Twenty-five years ago I was working as a journalist in London. In the early afternoon on September 11, all the televisions on the walls of the open-plan office suddenly showed the same image: the surreal sight of the Twin Towers burning and then collapsing. We heard that a neighbouring building, One Canada Square (also known as Canary Wharf Tower), where I had worked a year earlier, had been evacuated as there were rumours that a plane that had taken off from Heathrow was unaccounted for and, as the then tallest building in the UK and a symbol of capitalism, One Canada Square was an obvious target. As we know, nothing happened, and we got to work trying to explain the seemingly inexplicable.
Twenty-five years later, the deadliest terrorist attacks in history continue to cast a shadow on global affairs and US politics. As the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote this week, 9/11 is the “first and last moment in the 21st century that has united Americans”.
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]
Friday marks 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States – attacks which, according to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), “changed Americans’ relationship with their country and with the world” and resulted in “deep mistrust and severe polarisation”.
“On the morning of September 11, 2001, time was torn apart,” wrote the NZZ’s deputy editor-in-chief, who began his undergraduate studies in the US just before 9/11. “The world watched spellbound as the images played out on screens: two planes crashing into the Twin Towers, over and over again in an endless loop.”
One consequence of the attacks, in which almost 3,000 people died, was that “Americans saw themselves as victims of a perfidious attack and rallied behind their resolute president”, he said. “This was by no means a given – just a few months earlier [George W. Bush] had won one of the most controversial elections in American history by the narrowest of margins. Yet after September 11, 90% of the population supported him in the polls. That’s a record figure – completely unthinkable today.”
The Republican government capitalised on this support. The CIA detained suspects in secret camps and tortured them. The USA Patriot Act enabled the authorities to carry out house searches on terror suspects without a court order.
“At first, Americans accepted that the state wanted more control and was taking a more aggressive stance both at home and abroad,” the NZZ wrote. “Soon, however, the categories in Bush’s foreign policy became blurred: suddenly, the US wanted to democratise the Middle East and free women from the yoke of Islamism. Oil, gas and other strategic interests also played a role, however. The Americans invaded Iraq in 2003.”
The government’s approval ratings halved, while the US sank ever deeper into the quagmire of “forever wars”, the NZZ continued. “Bush went from being a strong leader to a president who divided the country more than anyone before him: although the Republicans continued to support him, only a tiny minority of Democrats still backed him. This heightened polarisation remains a lasting legacy of the Bush era. The rift between the parties deepened even further under Obama, Biden and Trump.” As a result, the NZZ said 9/11 is the “first and last moment in the 21st century that has united Americans”.
“Since 9/11, Americans have viewed the world outside differently,” the NZZ concluded. “It seems more dangerous, more confusing. And they are withdrawing. Paranoid doomsday-prepping billionaires and increasingly radical militias are the most extreme expression of a culture of fear that is spreading across the US. Ordinary citizens, too, are increasingly retreating to the suburbs and into their communities of like-minded people.”
The Zurich paper said the rise of social media was further reinforcing these filter bubbles. “Today, Americans move in parallel worlds depending on their political convictions. There are many reasons for this. Yet the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001, acted as catalysts.”
On Tuesday the White House escalated its trade dispute with Canada by banning the import of certain Canadian products, notably alcoholic drinks, and by raising customs duties on other goods. The Tribune de Genève says there’s no end in sight to the crisis.
A range of products, from mattresses to motorboats and golf buggies, will be subject to a 50% surcharge from September 15, Le Temps reported on Wednesday. An import ban on all kinds of alcoholic drinks as well as dairy products such as whey will come into force on September 29.
Good news, of sorts, is that certain Canadian products will no longer be subject to the 50% surcharge. This list is significantly shorter, but loo paper is on it.
This retaliatory move comes soon after Canada imposed customs duties on American products – in response to surcharges introduced by Washington on August 22.
“To justify the ban on imports of alcoholic drinks from Canada, US President Donald Trump has cited the boycott – which he describes as ‘discriminatory’ – targeting American spirits in Canada,” Le Temps explained. “Since the start of his tariff offensive last year, Canadians have launched a massive boycott of US products: US wines and spirits have disappeared from the shelves in most provinces, which hold a monopoly on their sale.”
As reported in Swissinfo’s US briefing two weeks ago, two-thirds of Canadians support a tough stance towards the US.
“There appears to be no end in sight to the crisis at present,” the Tribune de Genève wrote on Wednesday. “Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney warned on Tuesday morning that his government’s strategy to reduce dependence on the United States would have a short-term economic ‘cost’ for the country. The ‘cost of inaction’ would be far greater, he said in a video posted on YouTube a few hours after Canada’s tariff retaliation came into force.”
Swiss newspapers were impressed at the weekend by a medical success story in Boston: a pig kidney had functioned for nine months in the body of a 66-year-old man.
“The man’s prospects were bleak,” wrote the Tages-Anzeiger on Saturday. “His kidneys had been severely damaged by diabetes. For two years he had relied on dialysis, which left him utterly exhausted, while the function of his diseased organ continued to deteriorate.” Doctors estimated the probability of him receiving a kidney within the next five years at 9%, and the risk that he would not survive the waiting period at 40%. “Then the doctors devised a plan that was to result in a medical breakthrough.”
The doctors at Mass General Brigham in Boston transplanted a pig’s kidney into the patient, which worked so well that he managed without dialysis for 271 days, the team reported in the science journal The Lancet. Previously, pig kidneys had functioned in the human body for a maximum of two months. “For the first time, a human has benefited from a xenotransplant over a prolonged period,” the Tages-Anzeiger wrote, referring to a transplant from one species to another.
After around six months, damage to the kidney’s blood vessels became apparent, which ultimately led to organ failure. The kidney had to be removed, and the patient returned to dialysis. In the end, he was lucky: 80 days later a human donor kidney was found.
The Tages-Anzeiger pointed out that questions remain – the doctors can’t say why the pig’s kidney eventually failed – but it said there was now a debate about whether xenotransplantation is an option to bridge the waiting time for a human organ.
“For the team at Mass General Brigham, this success offers a potential solution to the global organ shortage,” Le Matin in Lausanne wrote on Saturday. “However, the researchers remain cautious: this involves a single patient, monitored under highly specialised conditions. Further trials will be needed before this type of transplant can be considered on a larger scale.”
The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, September 16. See you then!
If you have any comments or feedback, email english@swissinfo.ch
More
Subscribe to the newsletter “Swiss views of US news”
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!
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
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.