The United States and Switzerland reached an agreement Friday to sharply lower tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, officials said, with the Alpine nation vowing to invest $200 billion in the US to win over the White House.The deal was announced a day after talks in Washington, where Swiss economy minister Guy Parmelin visited in hopes of easing steep duties the Trump administration rolled out this year.Trump shocked Switzerland in August when he imposed a 39-percent duty on imports of goods from the country, among the highest in his global tariff blitz.”We’ve essentially reached a deal with Switzerland. So we’ll post details of that today on the White House website,” US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CNBC in an interview.Switzerland’s government said it and the United States have reached an agreement where US tariffs will be slashed from their current 39-percent level to 15 percent.As part of the deal, “Swiss companies intend to make $200 billion in direct investments in the United States by the end of 2028,” a government statement said. This would also include efforts to strengthen vocational education and training.Greer said the Swiss would send manufacturing, such as pharmaceuticals, gold smelting and railway equipment to US shores.- Cautious relief -The high tariff rate had jeopardized entire sectors of the export-heavy Swiss economy, notably watchmaking and industrial machinery, but also chocolate and cheese.While the pharmaceutical industry, Switzerland’s largest export sector, had enjoyed an exemption from tariffs on medications, it faced regular threats that Trump would soon target them too.Swissmem, the association of the mechanical and electrical engineering industry, expressed relief at Friday’s announcement.Swiss businesses have been worried that their competitors in other wealthy economies will have an edge over them, given that the European Union and Japan had negotiated lower tariff levels of 15 percent.While Swissmem noted that the deal brings “temporary relief,” its president Martin Hirzel warned that “we must not let our guard down. New tariffs could be introduced.”Last week, the heads of six top Swiss firms, including watchmaker Rolex and luxury goods giant Richemont, met with Trump to plead for relief from the tariffs.Yves Bugmann, president of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, said that the announced tariff reduction was good news for an industry facing challenges including an unpredictable Chinese market.He added that the high rate had been “unjustified and caused a great deal of uncertainty” in the sector.Trump has imposed sweeping duties on trading partners around the world since returning to the presidency, with separate levies on specific sectors like steel, aluminum and autos.nl-noo-bys-arp/mlm

A new prosecutor has taken over the election interference case in the US state of Georgia against President Donald Trump after the previous district attorney was removed.Peter Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, said in a statement on Friday that he was stepping in to oversee the case.Trump and 18 co-defendants were charged with racketeering and other offenses in Georgia in 2023 over their alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election in the southern state.A Georgia appeals court in December disqualified Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from the case citing the “impropriety” of an intimate relationship she had with the man she had hired to be a special prosecutor.Following Willis’s disqualification, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had set a Friday deadline for a new prosecutor to be named or the case would be dismissed.”While it would have been simple to allow Judge McAfee’s deadline to lapse or to inform the Court that no conflict prosecutor could be secured — thereby allowing the case to be dismissed for want of prosecution — I did not believe that to be the right course of action,” Skandalakis said.”The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case,” he said. “My only objective is to ensure that this case is handled properly, fairly, and with full transparency discharging my duties without fear, favor, or affection.”Trump and his 18 co-defendants were indicted for allegedly conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, where the Republican lost to Democrat Joe Biden.Four of those indicted subsequently pleaded guilty to lesser charges.Trump is unlikely to go on trial in Georgia while he is in the White House but the case could potentially proceed against the remaining co-defendants.Trump granted pardons over the weekend to several allies accused of attempting to subvert the 2020 election, but the pardons only apply to federal crimes, not state offenses such as those in Georgia.Among those who received pardons were former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, both of whom face charges in Georgia.Trump also faced two federal cases but they were dropped by special counsel Jack Smith after the November 2024 election under the Justice Department policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president.Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results and of removing large quantities of top secret documents after leaving the White House, but neither case came to trial.