Significant commercial barriers protect Swiss agriculture. According to Swiss customs data, they only very marginally brake imports from the United States.
Are producers of the United States unfairly hampered when they sell their food in Switzerland? The Trump administration pretends to be convinced. Statistics show that the reproach looks like a pretext.
There are indeed prohibitive prices
Switzerland indeed protects its agricultural market. Indeed, certain products are subject to significant barriers, called contingents. These fix the maximum quantities that can be imported, beyond which taxes comparable to figures articulated by Donald Trump apply. Here are some examples:
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The United States is not heavily penalized
Do these very high taxes really penalize trade balance and American producers? To have a clear heart, you have to be interested in imports within the contingents. These are much less taxed.
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Customs prices are most often equivalent to Europe and the United States. In our selection of products, only oranges are significantly more penalized for producers across the Atlantic (0% for the EU).
However, the observation is clear: on these nine products massively imported into Switzerland, only a product regularly comes from the United States: beef, 11% of which come from “magnificent oxen” touted by the Trump administration. For all the others, the share is zero or completely marginal. This means that even without – or with very little – customs duties, American producers do not export to Switzerland.
Italians are the most affected by Swiss customs
To remove customs duties, Switzerland should essentially renounce its contingents. But who would it really benefit from? At equal competition, Switzerland’s food partners are European. Irish for beef, German or Hungarian for poultry, Italians for tomatoes or oranges.
In 2024, the latter paid the largest customs bill, 162 million francs. The Germans follow just behind. As for the United States, it has paid 6 million francs, 27 times less.
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Without contingents or customs duties, which apply to everyone, nothing indicates that the American part would increase.
Romain Carrupt, Tybalt Félix
