Switzerland is offering to pour money into U.S. gold-refining plants in a push to get President Donald Trump to drop the 39% import tax slammed on its goods last month, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
That tax, the steepest seen in any developed country, is already cutting into Swiss export numbers and dragging growth predictions down. After an earlier attempt by Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter to push back on Trump blew up in her face, officials are now switching tactics. They’re dangling sweeteners across energy, farming, and now gold.
The offer made to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer includes sending Switzerland’s lowest-profit refining work to U.S. soil. That means moving the job of melting down large London gold bars and turning them into smaller ones preferred in New York—work that earns refiners just a few bucks per bar even when prices top $3,800 an ounce. The Swiss government didn’t want to talk specifics, but said it had “optimized its offer to the U.S. in order to reach a swift agreement.” It added that talks would continue with the goal of slashing the new tariffs as quickly as possible.
This all kicked off when Trump’s tariff threat created a window for gold traders. They moved quickly to dump gold into America before any official action landed. That short-term play turned into a problem when bullion made up more than two-thirds of Switzerland’s trade surplus with the U.S. in the first quarter alone. The canton of Ticino, home to the world’s biggest gold refineries, became the center of it all. With Swiss refineries running nonstop to melt and recast bars, a surplus exploded. That imbalance brought backlash from across the Swiss political map.
