Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter and Economy Minister Guy Parmelin will meet with Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio today in an attempt to avoid a new 39% tariff due to come into effect on Thursday.
There has been no confirmation that direct talks will take place between Ms Keller-Sutter and President Trump.
That meeting is seen as critical, because a trade deal, believed to be more in line with the UK’s headline tariff rate of 10%, was said to have been agreed with the US administration’s team last month.
That proposal was torn up last Thursday as the White House signaled the new 39% rate, which excludes pharmaceuticals — for now — will hit Switzerland’s watchmakers and precision machinery firms.
Swiss watchmakers have been exporting record levels of stock to the United States ahead of tomorrow’s deadline when higher tariffs are set to be imposed.
This was also seen previously with a sharp spike in exports in April when the value of exports to the United States rocketed by 50% to CHF 851 million, but whiplashed back to just CHF 268 million in May, a 25% drop year-on-year.
A major luxury watch and jewelry group told WatchPro this week that it believed there is around one month’s worth of additional inventory in the country.
That was ahead of a second major airlift positioning watches in the United States before Thursday’s deadline.
The current 10% tariff will be charged on any cargo already in transit by that date.