Podcasts - 03.09.2025 - 09:00
39 per cent. On the eve of Swiss National Day, of all days, Donald J. Trump's government announced that Switzerland would feel the impact of its ‘tariff hammer’ and that only four other countries would face even higher tariffs on exports to the US. The daily newspaper Blick coloured its front page black, and accusations rained down on Federal President Karin Keller-Sutter and her negotiating team for not negotiating boldly and courageously enough and for not making sufficient use of private-sector networks. America as a ‘sister republic’? Few Swiss people seem to believe that at the moment.
One person who, even after his time as ambassador in Washington, D.C., still likes to talk and think about the idea of sister republics is Martin Dahinden: the doctor of business administration worked in the American capital from 2014 to 2019 and met with President Trump on several occasions. Prior to that, he was head of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and had held positions in France, Nigeria and at the UN in New York. When he joined the diplomatic service in 1987, he was a member of the Swiss delegation to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and subsequently director of the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD).
Claudia Brühwiler talks to him about the tariff negotiations, the changes between Trump 1.0 and 2.0 – and Switzerland's future prospects.
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