Trump's tariff war Seco Director urges free trade talks with the USA
The Director of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco), Helene Budliger Artieda, has insisted in an interview on negotiations on a free trade agreement with the USA. The effects of possible US tariffs on medicines are difficult to assess.
21.02.2025, 06:13
21.02.2025, 06:26
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- The Director of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco), Helene Budliger Artieda, has insisted in an interview on negotiations on a free trade agreement with the USA.
- The effects of possible US tariffs on medicines, for example, are difficult to assess.
- President Donald Trump has announced plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on imports of medicines, which could have a significant impact on the Swiss pharmaceutical industry.
"We have to go there soon and see if something is possible," she told Tamedia newspapers with regard to the US government's trade policy. President Donald Trump has announced plans to impose a 25 percent tax on drug imports, which could have a significant impact on the Swiss pharmaceutical industry, Tamedia continued.
However, Budliger Artieda emphasized: "Our pharmaceutical companies already produce a lot in the USA. No country invests more in research and development in the USA than Switzerland." Swiss companies also pay average wages of 140,000 dollars per year in the USA. "We have been doing exactly what the new government wants for a long time," she added, emphasizing that contacts in the United States are being intensively cultivated.
"Oranges don't grow in Switzerland"
Switzerland is always interested in new agreements, said Budliger Artieda. When asked whether such an agreement was only realistic if agriculture was excluded, she replied: "No oranges grow in Switzerland, but they do in Florida." There are products for which tariffs could be lowered without harming Swiss agriculture.
On the free trade agreement with China, Budliger Artieda explained that economic interests do not take precedence over human rights. Switzerland had agreed with China to modernize the agreement concluded in 2014 and to include an updated sustainability chapter. "We are the only Western nation that is conducting a dialog on workers' rights with China," she said. This includes the situation of the Uyghurs in particular. Switzerland wants to intensify this exchange.