Analysis of his speech Trump's tirade against Switzerland in full - and what's behind it

Donald Trump used his WEF speech for an all-round attack on Switzerland - based on false figures and questionable assumptions. Instead of sober economic analysis, personal grievances dominated.

If you had to summarize the US President's speech at the WEF, rhetoric experts would use one word above all others: "The Weave". This is what 79-year-old Donald Trump calls it when he deviates from the speech manuscript on stage and lapses into an incoherent jumble of several topics.

Trump established this term himself in 2024, when the public increasingly noticed the meandering speeches of the US President. The term "meandering" comes from the flow of rivers and streams: they wind their way through areas and can change entire landscapes in the process.

Trump said at the time, partially translated: "I'm doing the Weave. Do you know what the Weave is? I'm talking about about nine different things that all come together in a brilliant way. And friends of mine who are English professors will say, 'That's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen'."

The problem from the perspective of foreign speakers: If such a speech is translated into a language other than Trump's, the stammering seems even more absurd. This becomes clear in the section of Trump's speech that was dedicated to Switzerland.

blue News has translated these five minutes from the transcript of the World Economic Forum into German as faithfully as possible. And provides background information.

You know, lowering interest rates - we should be paying a much lower interest rate than we are. We should. We should be paying the lowest interest rate of any country in the world, because without the United States, there is no country. I mean, I had a case with Switzerland. We happen to be in Switzerland.

Maybe I'll tell you a quick story ... but they didn't pay anything. They make beautiful watches, great watches, Rolex, everybody else. They paid the United States nothing when they delivered their product. And we had a 41 billion dollar deficit, 41 billion with this beautiful place - I flew over it, isn't that nice?

So Trump claimed that before him, the US didn't impose taxes or tariffs when Swiss watches were imported. However, this was wrong in substance. The US state did not impose blanket tariffs on luxury watches from the Swiss Confederation. However, the law in force at the time did provide for duties on imports, as evidenced by correspondence between an importer and US customs in 2015.

The importer wanted to know what duties he would have to expect if he imported a Richard Mille watch model RM011 AH RG/811. The answer from the US customs authority: A flat rate of 1.53 US dollars is due for the movement - a symbolic contribution, regardless of whether the watch costs 50 or 250,000 Swiss francs. However, a duty rate of 4.2 percent is charged for the case and between 2 and 9.8 percent for the bracelet. This was not decided by Switzerland, but by US policy, because since the quartz crisis of the 1970s, there are hardly any large US watch companies left that need to be protected by a customs policy.

What's more, Trump ignored the fact that there is also trade in services when claiming a 41 billion deficit. He only took goods into account. However, Switzerland imported around USD 49 billion in trade in services in 2024 - including the multi-billion dollar business in intellectual property such as software.

So I said, "Let's put a 30% tariff on them so we can get some of it back." Not all of it, not at all. We still have a deficit, a big deficit. We have 40, 41 million. That's a big deficit. And I said, "Let's put a tariff on it." Different tariffs, different places, you're all involved in it, in some cases victims of it. But at the end of the day, it's a fair thing, and most of you realize that. But we put a 30 percent tariff on Switzerland, and then all hell broke loose.

They called, I mean like you wouldn't believe. And I know so many people from Switzerland - incredible place, incredible, brilliant place. But I didn't realize that they were only good because of us. And there are so many other examples, I mean us, probably other places too, but most of the money they make is because of us, because we've never charged them anything.

Here is the most nonsensical attack: Trump insinuated that Switzerland would not be successful without the United States. Although Switzerland exports a lot to the US, the US market is of secondary importance to it overall: The Swiss Confederation exports and imports significantly more to the EU area than to the US.

Even from US exports to Switzerland, the Swiss state barely benefited. In addition, Switzerland unilaterally abolished all industrial tariffs in 2024 to relieve the economy and consumers.

There is also an often overlooked fact: Switzerland was very successful in developing innovations in many areas, while the USA was more successful in commercializing them. Take the internet, for example: The British physicist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in Geneva to make it easier for researchers worldwide to exchange data. He passed the invention on patent-free - which made the digital explosion possible and generated trillions in profits for US companies such as Google, Amazon and Facebook. Switzerland and CERN laid the foundations without ever asking for anything in return.

Similarly with computers: Logitech was originally a Swiss company and developed the computer mouse. It made computer operation intuitive and thus laid the foundation for the success of Microsoft and Apple. Apple's voice assistant Siri also has its origins in Switzerland: Didier Guzzoni developed the human-machine interface, published it in the App Store in February 2010 and sold the technology to Apple two months later. It was later adapted by Google and Microsoft and is now part of ChatGPT and similar systems.

Then I think the Prime Minister - I don't think the President, I think the Prime Minister - called. A woman, and she was very repetitive. She said: "No, no, no, you can't do that. 30 percent, you can't do that. We're a small, small country." I said, "Yes, but you have a big, big deficit. You may be small, but you have a bigger deficit than big countries."

They said, "No, no, no, please. You can't do it." She kept saying the same thing, "We're a small country."

I said, "But you're a big country in terms of ..." And she got me the wrong way, frankly. And I said, "All right, thank you, ma'am, I appreciate it. Don't do that. Thank you very much, ma'am."

Exactly how that phone call went down is not documented. Trump at least remembered that Karin Keller-Sutter was a woman and that she was something of a prime minister to him. He can be given credit for the fact that Switzerland has an unusual form of government: Formally, the full Federal Council is considered the collective head of state, while the female president - like Keller-Sutter last year - only has a representative role.

Her spokesperson Pascal Hollenstein briefly explained to Blick: "We assume that the Swiss people know how to classify this."

And I made it to 39 percent, and then all hell really broke loose. And I got visits from everyone. Rolex came to me, they all came to me. But I realized, and I reduced it because I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to hurt them. And we've brought it down to, you know, a lower level. Doesn't mean it won't go back up, but we've brought it down to a lower level, but they're paying now, tariffs.

But, but ... I realized that we have a lot of places like this where they're making a fortune because of the United States. Without the United States, they wouldn't be making anything. Think about it. Switzerland has made 41 billion dollars on us. And like she said, it's a small place.

And I realized with that, I don't know, I was so ... because she was so aggressive. And I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat. A lot of places ... I could name you six, seven places, just with the people in this little neighborhood, I know every single one of them, they're kind of ... they look down, they don't want to see me, and they don't want to look me in the eye. But they take advantage of it, everybody has taken advantage of the United States.

At this point - and in the following paragraphs - it becomes clear that Trump had turned on Switzerland and other countries because of his flawed trade balance calculation. He takes contradiction personally and presents himself as an old-school patron who must not be contradicted.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis was not the only one to find this problematic: "It was unacceptable to be treated in this way." He was probably speaking from the soul of other countries that sent their own soldiers to the Middle East after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The basis for this was NATO Article 5, according to which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.

As a result, allies participated shoulder to shoulder in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands lost hundreds of citizens in the process. This did not matter to Trump: "We have received nothing from NATO." He repeated this stance after his tirade against Switzerland.

But I've been very fair, and I've given them an inch, and it's been good. But I realized that without us, it's no longer Switzerland. Without us. It's not any of the countries that are represented here. And we want to work with the countries. We want to work with them. We're not out to destroy them. I could have said 39-40 percent, I could have said: "I want a tariff of 70 percent", then we would make money with Switzerland. But Switzerland would probably have been destroyed, financially destroyed. I don't want to do that.

But we should pay the lowest interest rate of all. I hope Scott hears that, because we should pay the lowest interest rate of all. Without us, without us, most countries don't even function. And then you have the protection factor. Without our military, which is by far the largest in the world, without our military you have threats that you would never, you wouldn't believe it. You wouldn't have those threats because of us, and that's because of NATO.