Sawt Falasteen - Swiss president to meet Rubio as surprise tariff hike looms

The Alpine country faces a 39-percent duty on many of its exports to the United States come Thursday, one of the highest levels among dozens of economies due to be hit by President Donald Trump's upcoming tranche of tariffs.

President Karin Keller-Sutter and Economy Minister Guy Parmelin hurried to Washington "to facilitate meetings with the US authorities at short notice and hold talks with a view to improving the tariff situation," the Swiss government said in a statement.

On Wednesday morning, Keller-Sutter and Parmelin arrived at the State Department in Washington for their scheduled talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The White House previously told AFP that there was, for now, no meeting planned with Trump -- who threatened in April to slap a 31-percent tariff on Swiss goods.

It remains unclear if the Swiss delegation will meet with top US economic officials during their trip.

Trump surprised the country last week when Washington released an updated list of tariff levels for dozens of US trading partners, due to take effect Thursday, showing the Swiss duty would be raised to 39 percent.

This is significantly higher than the 15-percent level faced by economies like the European Union, Japan and South Korea.

On Tuesday, Trump told CNBC in an interview that he "did something with Switzerland the other day" and spoke to Keller-Sutter.

"The woman was nice, but she didn't want to listen," he added.

The wave of US tariffs taking effect Thursday do not cover sectors that are being separately targeted by US investigations such as pharmaceuticals, a key sector for Switzerland.

But Trump signaled that fresh duties on pharmaceutical imports could be announced within the week, starting at a low level before potentially surging as high as 250 percent.

M.Qasim--SF-PST