Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

Since President Donald Trump’s April Liberation Day announcement on tariffs, countries have been scrambling to negotiate with the self-proclaimed Dealmaker-in-Chief. Not a simple affair. For while DJT basks in watching heads of state vie for his favors, global leaders try to understand how to negotiate with his ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment style. The negotiating process has been particularly revelatory and catastrophic for the Swiss who have a special two hundred year relationship with the United States. Washington’s announced 39% tariffs on Swiss exports have challenged whatever family bonds existed between the so-called Sister Republics.

The Swiss were “shocked” at the 39% tariffs Trump declared in early August, the highest of any industrial country in the world; the only higher ones for the moment are Brazil (50%), Syria (41%), and Laos and Myanmar (40%). Neighboring European Union countries were taxed at 15%. The 39% tariffs have significant economic consequences for Switzerland since exported goods account for about one-fifth of its GDP, with the U.S. its largest export market. Sixty percent of Swiss exports to the U.S. will be effected including luxury watches and Nespresso coffee capsules.

The high tariffs also shocked the Swiss because they ignored the historic and ideological connection between Switzerland and the United States. Among the relationship’s highlights:

Thomas Jefferson, it is believed, changed the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence from life, liberty and property to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness after reading the Swiss legal and political theorist Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui.

The Genevan Albert Gallatin migrated to the United States in the 1780s, attended the Continental Congress and was a distinguished member of the House of Representatives. He was the longest serving American Secretary of Treasury (1801-1813), was influential in the Louisiana Purchase as well as founder of New York........

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