Trump makes 'embarrassing' blunder after sending a warning threat to Switzerland

 Donald Trump said he "really didn't like" the way the Swiss leader Karin Keller-Sutter talked to him in a phone call the two held last year. Trump raised tariffs on Swiss imports by 9% following a tense phone call with Keller-Sutter, who he mistakenly referred to as Switzerland's Prime Minister.

In reality, she is a member of the Swiss Federal Council. Switzerland also does not have a prime minister but a president, who is a man. The current president is Guy Parmelin, since January 2026. Frustrated by what he described as the Swiss leader's tone, Trump said he decided to raise the tariff to 39%.

In a Fox Business interview, he said: "I put on a 30% tariff, which is very low. Then I got an emergency call from, I believe, the Prime Minister of Switzerland, and she was very aggressive but nice but very aggressive. She said, 'Sir, we are a small country. We can't do this. We can't do this.' I couldn't get her off the phone."

He added: "You may be a small country, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you."

The furious president went on: "You know, I had an incident with a very nice country, Switzerland. They were paying no tariffs when sending stuff over here - like nobody could believe it - and we had a $42 billion deficit. We weren't taking anything, and I said, 'We have to do something, because we have to even that up a little bit.' I didn't have to get anything all at once, so I put on a 30% tariff, which was too low. Still, we were having a big deficit, but it was half the deficit.

"You know Switzerland, you think of it as ultra-chic, ultra-perfect. They are not. They are only that because we allow them to rip us off and make all this money."

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump also admitted he wasn't sure whether Switzerland had a prime minister or president.

"I guess the Prime Minister, I don't know, the President, the Prime Minister called, a woman. And she was very repetitive. She said, 'No, no, no, you can't do that, 30%. We are a small, small country.' But I said, 'You may be small, but you have a big deficit,'" Trump said.

Following the heated phone call, despite Trump's rhetoric, the US and Swiss negotiators eventually struck a deal in November to lower the tariff to 15%, with Swiss firms committing $200 billion in investments in the US by 2028.

Switzerland does not have a prime minister. Instead, the country is governed collectively by a seven-member Federal Council. Its current president is Guy Parmelin.