Donald Trump seems to have fumbled the ball once again, as he accidentally referred to Switzerland’s President as the country’s Prime Minister, despite the nation not having such a position in its government. In a recent interview, he recalled a conversation with former Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter, wherein he inadvertently alluded to her as the Prime Minister of her country. As such, Trump has garnered much criticism online, with netizens calling out his blunder.
Donald Trump’s ‘Prime Minister of Switzerland’ comment draws attention
The POTUS recently narrated a discussion he had with Karin Keller-Sutter a few months ago about trade tariffs between the US and Switzerland.
“[Switzerland] were paying no tariffs, sending stuff over here like nobody could believe, and we had a $42 billion deficit, and we weren’t taking anything. I said we have to do something, because we have to even that up a little bit. So, I put on a 30% tariff, which is very low. Still, we were having a big deficit, but it was half the deficit,” Donald Trump noted during a February 10 sit-down with Fox News.
The businessman-turned-politician then recollected the conversation he had with Keller-Sutter on the topic, but ended up referring to her as the Prime Minister of Switzerland.
“Then I got an emergency call from, I believe, the Prime Minister of Switzerland, and she was very aggressive. Nice, but very aggressive. ‘Sir, we are a small country, we can’t do this, we can’t do this.’ I couldn’t get her off the phone,” Trump said.
Eventually, the two-time US President ended up raising the tariff percentage he imposed on the European country, as he disliked the way Keller-Sutter talked to him. “[The tariffs were] at 30 percent, and I didn’t really like the way she talked to us, and so instead of giving her a reduction, I raised it to 39 percent, and then I got inundated by people from Switzerland, and I figured, ‘Do you know what? We’ll do something that’s a little bit more palatable,” he remarked.
Meanwhile, netizens were taken aback by Donald Trump incorrectly addressing the Swiss President. “Trump just raised tariffs on Switzerland because of how their ‘prime minister’ spoke to him… except Switzerland doesn’t even have a prime minister. At this point, fact-checking feels futile,” commented an X (formerly Twitter) user.
Notably, Karin Keller-Sutter has since left office, with Guy Parmelin of the Swiss People’s Party replacing her as the nation’s President.
Originally reported by Apoorv Rastogi on Mandatory.
