Small country: Big tariffs

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We head to Switzerland, a small but very successful country with a population of just 9 million.

And now coping with some of US President Donald Trump’s highest tariffs.

In August the original threat of 31% tariffs was raised to 39%.

Two months on, efforts to negotiate with Washington have proved fruitless and the Swiss economy, regularly ranked as the most competitive in the world, is starting to slow down.

Produced and presented by Imogen Foulkes

(Swiss watch brands, including Zenith and Hublot, in a shopping arcade in Geneva, Switzerland. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:06.5	Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Imogen folks.
0:13.1	In today's program, we look at a small but very successful country, now coping with some of President Trump's highest tariffs.
0:26.4	The 1st of August 2025.
0:32.1	Across Switzerland, families were celebrating Swiss National Day,
0:36.8	getting together for brunch in the mountains,
0:39.8	barbecuing the traditional cerealite sausages, and then shattering news.
0:45.8	The president is escalating his global trade tariff for Switzerland with a 39% tariff.
0:52.1	I was actually on a plane to the US when I first read about it,
0:56.4	and I simply could not believe what I was seeing.
1:00.1	For me, who has been dedicated his whole career the last 30 years
1:04.2	to promoting the Swiss excellence into building things that not many other can, I was really, I was stunned.
1:14.2	39% tariffs.
1:16.7	This is unjustified.
1:18.4	You can't explain why it is so high.
1:20.8	Switzerland is now the most heavily taxed developed economy in the US trade reset.
1:25.5	A 39% tariff.
1:27.2	The shock among Swiss business leaders was profound,
1:30.7	not least because back in May,
1:33.5	Switzerland's president, Karen Keller-Suter,
1:36.5	had appeared very hopeful of a deal.
1:38.8	The US side was quite clear about the fact
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.