DREAM / The Prime Minister resigns and wakes up under the Parisian bridge!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

Keller-Sutter, the Swiss president who is not afraid of Trump (the aftermath of the conflict that started with a phone call)

2025-08-26 17:01:04Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Keller-Sutter, the Swiss president who is not afraid of Trump (the aftermath of
Keller-Sutter and Donald Trump

In an interview last summer with the Catholic magazine Salve, she listed the “foundations of courageous action”: “to form an opinion and defend it. To follow your values ​​and personality.” Karin Keller-Sutter was not yet the (acting) president of the Swiss Confederation; nor had she fully demonstrated to the world the “courageous action” that could cost her dearly today, or elevate her to a pedestal as the leader who stood up to Donald Trump.

What will be the end for the KKS, the initials by which the Swiss press, which is now critical of it, identifies it, will depend on the negotiations with Washington in the fall: will Switzerland be able to convince Trump to remove the 39% super-tariff on exports to the US and reduce it to a more moderate level of 15%, as Europe has negotiated? And will it be the one to lead these negotiations?

Decisive phone call

The tariff took effect on August 7 and was imposed on Berne after a failed phone call on July 31 between the KKS and Trump. The call was intended to finalize a deal that had taken hundreds of hours of meetings between the two countries’ Treasury secretaries. But it ended badly, with Trump exclaiming, “You didn’t listen to me.”

Swiss newspapers have reported different versions of what happened. The first version, given by the presidency a week ago, indicated that the KKS had done nothing to provoke Trump, who became aggressive himself, a scenario that is not at all implausible.

But on Sunday, the tabloid Blick quoted two anonymous White House sources as saying: “Trump is tired of it,” and “it’s not a problem between two countries, but between two personalities,” a phrase reportedly uttered by Trump himself. According to them, “Clinton wouldn’t stay on the phone for more than ten minutes” in that tone, and neither would Obama.

The Swiss president reportedly interrupted and corrected Trump on one point: the $40 billion trade deficit between the two countries, which she said was inaccurate or at least not harmful to the US, while Trump called it "a theft."

"An intensive course in economics and economic policy," the source describes it for "Blick." And for Trump, that was the end: he "ended it" with her. For this reason, the tabloids and the People's Party (the opposition to the liberals of the KKS) are demanding that: the president resign and that her deputy, Guy Parmelin, be sent to negotiations.

negotiations

Since August 7, when the tariffs came into effect, the Swiss government has been preparing a more acceptable proposal for Trump. According to information published yesterday by Reuters, the draft, which is expected to be ready in September and presented in October, foresees an increase in bilateral agreements in the fields of defense and energy.

It also includes previously untouchable topics, such as meat imports (farmers are a very protected electoral base) and cars. According to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, this would cost Switzerland 400 billion francs. But that is still more acceptable than a 39% tariff.

The Presidency and the Ring

However, trust in Karin Keller-Sutter as the negotiator of this deal is declining. At an all-time low for a president who had until now been strongly supported by the press and the political elite. The peak of her career was in 2023, when, just two months after becoming finance minister, she managed the rescue of Credit Suisse through a “marriage of convenience” with rival bank UBS, a move that was described by the Financial Times as “a beacon for the Swiss,” and which landed her on its list of women of the year.

The "miraculous" plan (again according to the FT) was carried out in 48 hours; today, some think that perhaps this success gave her too much confidence to face Trump, underestimating his ego.

Born in the canton of St. Gallen (German-speaking Switzerland), Catholic, KKS has always been part of the liberals. For this reason, too, the rescue of Credit Suisse with public money was particularly courageous, because it went against the principles of her party, but also her personal upbringing: she is the daughter of a butcher who later became the owner of a pub in the village of Jonschwil, with an upbringing that preaches “keeping things in order.”

Her calmness and focus have been widely appreciated in the business world. During the pandemic, she was a member of the Federal Council: she combined support for businesses with strict discipline, drawing also on the experience of her husband, Morten Keller, a forensic doctor with public functions in Zurich.

“Like my dog,” she now has a dog named Picasso, “I refuse to be put on a mask,” was her slogan when she first ran for mayor in her city in 1992. Born in 1963, she has a degree in translation and then in pedagogy. A 2018 profile by Swiss public television links this training to her “sense of service” and “modesty.”

But few know, adds the "Financial Times" in a portrait from 2023, that in her free time KKS trains in the ring: her passion is boxing./ Corriere della Sera


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×