US tariffs on goods from Switzerland are slashed.
They're going to send a lot of their manufacturing here to the United States.
Pharmaceuticals, gold smelting, railway equipment.
Our number one selling cheese is called Hollerhocker, mostly produced specifically for the US market.
It's World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
This is Andrew Peach.
On the way.
We'll look at the big Swiss exports to the US and ask what made President Trump change his mind?
Also today, responsibility for an environmental disaster in Brazil caused by the collapse of a dam.
And help is at hand to reduce your screen time.
First, Switzerland and the US have reached a trade deal cutting US tariffs on Swiss imports from 39 to 15.
That's the same on goods from its neighbours in the European Union.
Switzerland, in return, has agreed its companies will invest $200 billion in the United States.
Here's the US Trade Representative, Jameson Greer.
So Switzerland is probably the next one.
I just met with them yesterday afternoon.
I spoke with the president just this morning and yesterday.
I've coordinated with cabinet colleagues, Secretary Ludnick, Secretary Besson, the chief of staff.
And this is something where we've essentially reached a deal with Switzerland.
So we'll post details of that today on the White House website, where they're going to send a lot of their manufacturing here to the United States.
Pharmaceuticals, gold smelting, railway equipment.
So we're really excited about that deal and what it means for American manufacturing.
I asked our correspondent in Geneva, Imogen Folks, what changed?
The government itself may not have made that much headway, but we do know that Swiss business leaders who already had contacts in, shall we say, the Trump circle, have been lobbying Donald Trump himself.
We saw Rolex hosting Donald Trump in their VIP box at the US Open final in September.
We saw a whole team of senior Swiss luxury good business leaders head to the Oval Office just last week bearing gifts.
And this appears.
It's not the conventional way of doing these kinds of negotiations, but it appears that this may have finally inclined the president to do things that the Swiss would prefer, which is a reduction to 15 percent.
Well, whatever works, I guess.
We do tend to think of those luxury items, the clocks and the watches, the chocolates and the cheese.
But actually Swiss exports of pharma, pharmaceuticals and machine parts are the really big deal here.
That's right.
And pharmaceuticals, I should say, are a bit the elephant in the room with this deal.
And even, in fact, with the 39 percent tariffs, because Washington never really said what was going to happen with pharmaceuticals.
They have threatened not just Switzerland, but other pharma producing countries with much, much more higher tariffs.
But I mean possibly, because even Donald Trump who can be rash, some might say may not want to risk a drying up of essential medicines to the United States.
He's never gone ahead with sometimes he's threatened 50%, sometimes 100% on pharmaceuticals.
So they were never included.
But the other thing that is very important for the Swiss economy is an industry that has grown out of the precision making, the watchmaking history.
And that is very fine machine tools and medical technology.
So the Swiss sell, top of the art, artificial hips, artificial knees, the surgical tools which help to replace hips and knees.
They sell artificial aortic valves all things that a big, developed country with an ageing population like the United States actually needs.
They were hit with this 39%.
They suffered a 24% reduction in their sales to the United States.
At the same time, it's pretty certain that US patients were also having to wait longer for the things that they needed.
So a bit of a lose-lose situation.
And I think there there was huge relief, definitely tonight in Switzerland.
But there may well be also relief on the other side of the pond, in American hospitals and in patients waiting, for example, for a hip or knee replacement.
And how long does it take for this change to take effect?
Because, of course, the sort of products we're talking about are ordered and purchased months, possibly even years, in advance.
Theoretically, the reduction to 15 is going to happen right away.
But there's quite a lot of devil in the detail, because there's quite a lot of stuff that is not entirely clear.
I was watching the Swiss government press conference earlier today when they announced this.
There are a lot of questions, for example, about food imports.
The Swiss population does not want American chlorinated chicken, for example, and the Swiss economy minister was bit vague about did you have to agree to take this in return for this deal?
So although theoretically this reduction comes in now, the swiss people, because of the system of direct democracy, always have the final say here.
So this agreement could go through the government, it could go through parliament, but it could still end up in a nationwide referendum.
And if the Swiss voters don't like it, there's kind of a snap opinion polls suggesting that Swiss voters think their government may have given away too much.
So the jury's out, but for now...
I have to stress, Swiss business leaders are heaving a sigh of relief.
Our correspondent Imogen Folks with me from Geneva.
So Switzerland's biggest exports may be pharmaceuticals and machine parts, but perhaps the most famous one is cheese.
Caroline Hustetler is founder and owner of Quality Cheese Inc.
She's live with us from Switzerland on World Business Report.
So Caroline, what's your reaction to this development and, for that matter, the reaction of other cheese producers?
Well, we were all very happy this afternoon.
There was a lot of texting and phoning and calling going on.
Of course, for us all, it is a relief.
We were punished for a while so hard, without knowing why, with the 39 versus the 15 for all other EU countries.
So being on level right now is a real big relief.
Well, a lot of countries have experienced this, whereby you end up with 15 tariffs, which might have felt like a nightmare were it not for the fact that you'd have 39 on the way.
And that came out of nowhere, didn't it?
It felt like Switzerland and the US were close and that Donald Trump was about to do a preferential trade deal.
And then suddenly it fell apart.
It did.
And nobody knew why.
And, you know, the Swiss always tried to be nice and neutral and polite and everything.
And we really didn't know what to do.
And it was really, really hard.
It came kind of out of the blue.
And it was really hard leading to that last quarter of the year, which in cheese is a big, the most important quarter.
So we are relieved.
We are now on a level par.
It's amazing.
All of a sudden you accept 15 percent taxes and you talk about like it was the normal and it was totally OK.
We're just glad we are now again attractive, price wise, again competitive, and we are certainly ready to go.
How much of your cheese is sold into the US and what kind of impact have these tariffs had in recent months?
Well, the tariffs, it depends on the producer, the importer, the exporter, the distributor.
I cannot talk for everyone, but we have seen all of us, all of Swiss producers, exporters, importers, massive decreases.
And basically...
When you know how bigger chains, bigger businesses, are organized and function.
We all know the fourth quarter basically, was lost.
People do put things on track and promote products and pushes way ahead.
So we're just trying to catch up now.
And the good part was that during the past weeks, even with those 39 tariffs, we got a clear sign from consumer side that they wanted Swiss cheese.
Consumers want the real Swiss AOP cheeses, the staples of Switzerland, and that's a very good sign for us.
And now that we have the tariffs down to 15%, we can go again.
So that's Just to underline this business of the importance of the fourth quarter in the US.
That's presumably because people are buying for Thanksgiving, buying for the holiday season.
Yeah, that's generally.
You know, even in Switzerland we say the summer is for grilling and meat and the winter is for cheese and melting cheese.
So it's always our...
Strongest.
Strongest months are the winter months, from September on until after the holidays.
The cold months are clear, the best cheese months.
So that's important.
Yes.
Caroline, thank you very much indeed.
Caroline Hustetler from Switzerland.
Obviously, the burden of tariffs falls on the importer, on the consumer more than the exporter.
So let's go to the US and hear someone from the cheese industry there.
John March owns the St.
Killian's Cheese Shop.
It's in Colorado and imports cheese from around the world, including, of course, from Switzerland?
I would say that the Swiss cheeses probably make up somewhere around like 20 to 30% of our sales.
So a pretty big chunk.
And is it regarded as a real premium product in Colorado?
Very much so.
Yes.
I mean Swiss cheeses.
Prices are even before tariffs.
Are you know on the higher range of cheeses out there?
These cheeses aren't as readily available to consumers as say Italian French, Spanish cheeses, which are maybe more common in like large chains and other stores like that.
I see.
So you've got a whole range of European cheeses available for the cheese lovers of Colorado.
And suddenly Donald Trump has fallen out with Switzerland.
There are really substantial tariffs on goods from Switzerland.
What impact has that had on your business?
It's had a really big impact.
Our number one selling cheese in our shop is a cheese that is called Hollerhocker, which comes from Switzerland.
And it is mostly produced specifically for the US market.
So that cheese in our store previously was retailing around 35 a pound and 39 tariff on Something like that is, you know you're talking a massive increase in price.
And what's the consumer impact being?
Because you've had a few months to test this out.
Not that you would have wished to, but you've had to increase the prices of things like hocker holler.
People either perhaps can't afford to buy that or are more tempted by other cheeses you've got on sale.
What have consumers done?
It's definitely hurt sales more on the kind of cheeses that people recognize and know, like Gruyere would be, I think, the clearest example.
One of the other factors that's been really big for us is a lot of these cheeses.
They're produced seasonally.
Shipments are brought into the US in, you know, the fall season, early winter, preparing for the winter season to sell.
And when the tariffs hit is right when we were finalizing orders.
You know, when the tariffs first came out and we hadn't seen yet what was going to be an impact on consumers, we had to pare back orders from cheeses from Switzerland.
I was just thinking that maybe this was great news just in time for Thanksgiving.
But of course, it's too late, isn't it?
Because even if people haven't bought their cheese yet from you, you've already bought the cheese.
The kind of ironic thing is exactly how this fell from when they first introduced the punitive tariff at 39.
At that point we went the other direction and we tried to purchase extra cheese before the tariff cheese came in.
So we purchased quite a bit of cheese in some of our most popular cheeses from importers who already had stock in the United States before the newer tariff was applied.
And that allowed us to maintain our pricing what we were at.
We had already adjusted pricing for just the general tariff that had been applied, the 15, to almost every country.
And then we were able to maintain that price point up until really recently, when we started to run out of those.
That's John Marsh with me from St.
Killian's Cheese Shop in Colorado.
And this is World Business Report from the BBC World Service with Andrew Peach.
Chris Lowe is chief economist at FHN Financial in New York.
So, Chris, give me a sense, first of all, of how the markets have reacted.
What's the Swiss franc been doing off the back of all this?
Well, it is significantly higher.
You know, no question, U.S. is a very important trade partner for Switzerland.
So this has been quite supportive of the franc.
You know, interestingly, the dollar is not doing too bad this week either, I think.
Trade policies that promise better trade flows, probably beneficial for everybody.
Do we think that Donald Trump has now come round to what everyone else was always saying, which is that tariffs hurt US consumers?
There is some evidence of that.
And I think, in particular, the fact that Besant made a point of highlighting the new trade deals with four Latin American economies announced, also announced today, which are focused on food.
And that is where consumers have been complaining about.
I seem to have lost our connection with Chris Lowe.
We'll come back to Chris in a second or two on the programme.
Stay with us.
Now, it's largely considered to be Brazil's worst environmental disaster in history.
5th November 2015, the Mariana Dam collapsed in the state of Minas Gerais, in the south-east of the country.
That's the sound of the dam after it burst and began spewing streams of brown sludge.
Julia Carnero produced this report for the BBC at the time.
A sea of mud and debris.
After the dam burst, thick reddish dirt gushed into the rural district of Bento Rodrigues, outside the old colonial town of Mariana in Minas Gerais.
It removed rooftops, dragged trucks and destroyed homes.
The deluge settled into a dense surface of mud engulfing part of the district.
Tens of millions of cubic metres of toxic waste and mud were unleashed.
Local people had no time to escape.
Homes were swallowed up.
The river was poisoned.
19 people lost their lives.
Now the dam was owned by Samarco, a joint venture between the mining giants Valley and the Australian-owned BHP.
Today, we've learned that a British court has found BHP liable for the collapse of the dam, potentially paving the way for billions of dollars in compensation payouts.
It's the first time many of the mining companies behind the dam have been held legally responsible for what happened.
Carolina Leite is a lawyer who represents some of the victims and spoke outside court.
It is a landmark ruling for several aspects.
At this moment, everyone is looking at Brazil because of the COP30.
So there's this element, everyone is thinking about the environment.
This is a huge collapse.
It's probably the worst one we had in Brazilian history.
There is the element of 10 years anniversary since it happened.
So the victims, this feels like a good moment for they finally have a positive judgment.
Let's get more on the significance of this case from our South America correspondent, Ione Wells.
The fact that it's been heard at this High Court in London has proved a matter of great controversy throughout the case.
Essentially, the lawyers representing this civil case, Fergus Goodhead, had argued that because BHP was headquartered in London at the time of this disaster, that this case should be held in London.
And certainly many of the claimants, some of whom I've spoken to in the past, felt that they may get what they felt would be better justice in the UK legal system.
Now that being said, BHP has strongly refuted it being held in London.
They have said that this duplicates separate compensation schemes and legal processes that have been taking place in Brazil.
And so I think that it doubles up essentially, work that is already ongoing there to try and compensate for the damage that happened as a result of this disaster.
Now, this has been an ongoing trial now that has been more than a year really in the running.
It culminated in the judge in her High Court ruling saying that BHP and Vale continuing to raise the height of the dam when it wasn't safe to do so was, in her words, the direct and immediate cause of the dam's collapse, meaning that she believes that BHP was liable under Brazilian law.
Now, this is something that BHP have always said.
They have accepted the need to compensate victims of this disaster, but have denied liability, and they are expected to appeal this ruling.
I think one thing that is worth saying is that even though this liability ruling has happened...
It's expected this case is very far from over.
Not only is there going to be a lengthy appeals process, but this is only really the first stage.
It will then be for all these different claimants to essentially prove damages in order to try and receive compensation.
South America correspondent Ione Wells.
Let's go back to New York and Chris Lowe from FHN Financial.
Let's talk about Bitcoin, Chris.
We're used to talking about Bitcoin rising and rising in value.
Actually, for the first time in months, it's fallen below $95,000.
Why?
Yeah, really a significant correction down more than 25%.
I think this is an indication that the weakness in US equities is more than just economics or trade news.
This is just a general overextension of risk taking and an indication that people are taking some of that risk off the table.
So really a traditional market correction, but it's also because the Bitcoin trade has been supported by weakness in the dollar.
It's a dollar alternative.
And with the dollar performing better in the last month or so, some of the interest in Bitcoin has faded.
That's interesting.
As soon as something is stronger, then it means you take your money out of, in this case, Bitcoin or whatever.
What about this investment, billions and billions of dollars of investment in a new data centre in Texas by Google?
This is part of an explosion of spending on artificial intelligence technology and which is remaking the US economy.
To put it into perspective,
Our GDP is $30 trillion, and these tech companies have spent $3 trillion investing in AI.
Google's investment will make their AI network more robust.
It will make it more accessible to more people.
And ultimately it means more of the productivity enhancement that is, growth without hiring that we've seen throughout the economy.
And finally, a change at the top at Walmart coming in, well, just over 12 months' time.
Tell me a bit more.
Yeah, Walmart...
Walmart has been evolving really quickly in terms of getting up to speed, competing with Amazon online much more effectively.
And I think this is a further move in that direction, an effort to keep the retailer relevant while maintaining its bigger share of among lower income Americans and, in addition, hanging on to that grocery business which really sets it apart as well.
Chris, thank you very much.
Chris Lowe from FHN Financial live with me on World Business Report.
Now, how much screen time are you willing to admit to? three hours a day, four, five.
No judgment here, I promise.
But according to healthcare data company Harmony Healthcare IT, on average we spend five hours and 16 minutes on our screens.
And that's spawned a whole industry trying to help us get away from our phones.
Maria Hollenhurst from our US partners, Marketplace has more.
About a year and a half ago, a friend of mine told me about an app she downloaded to help curb her screen time.
It turns on the camera and it watches me and I have to do either push-ups or squats or something like that for every minute of free use of the apps that I've chosen to lock.
Her name's Hannah Palma, and the app is called ClearSpace.
You can tell it how much you want to use certain apps like Instagram or TikTok, and it will prompt you to do an exercise or take a deep breath each time you open them.
Oh, and it costs $50 a year, which Hannah pays gladly.
I realize like it's kind of silly that I'm paying monthly for my phone and then I'm paying yearly to not use it.
But I think that's the best way that I've like stayed healthy in managing my screen time.
ClearSpace is just one of dozens of companies that have popped up in recent years that are in the business of screen time reduction.
And Hannah, who's actually a mobile app engineer, convinced me to sign up too.
I found that just taking a pause before opening TikTok at least helped me become more conscious of my scrolling.
And like a lot of these new apps, it had a dashboard where I could track my progress.
It's fascinating, isn't it?
Don't use your phone, but like come to this dashboard, which will show you how much you've not used your phone.
Zotania Sujan is a reader in communication and social technologies at the London College of Communication.
And she said that those gamified features like stats, tracking streaks and the ability to add friends are the same ones that social media companies use to make their platforms so sticky in the first place.
It's that little dopamine hit we all get when we see notifications from our virtual lives.
I think, digital well-being and digital detox and these apps are trying to give people well weirdly, using the same systems and tools to try to give people a sense of control over very pervasive interfaces and technologies.
Some startups sell physical devices that restrict apps when you tap them.
They're priced between $30 and $60, sometimes with an additional monthly subscription fee.
But almost all of these systems have ways to cheat a little, break the rules that you've set for yourself.
I think the challenge is the magnetism of the phone is strong and the functional use of the phone is strong.
Ben Goldhirsch developed his own homemade screen limiting solution, which he calls The Staff of Destiny.
It's a big walking stick.
He picked it up while camping in Alaska that he screwed his phone case into, which is super embarrassing to kind of walk through the airport with your phone on a stick.
But it did have kind of a wizard vibe.
It's designed to make scrolling inconvenient.
And with that same idea, a company that Goldhirsch co-founded called Matter Neuroscience is now developing a six-pound phone case priced at 209.
And if you're hearing this and screaming $200 phone case, $50 app.
Yes, it is crazy.
I think it's crazy to pay to not use your phone.
I think you'd think that it would just be up to people to be able to do that.
So Tanya Sujan again at the London College of Communication.
But the thing I think the most is that being chronically online and being deeply engaged with your phone is not like a personal fault.
It's something that we are using these technologies the way that they're designed to.
When I checked in with Hannah a few weeks ago, it was clear she'd been a lot more dedicated to her screen limits than I have.
I have a 74-day streak that I'm really proud of.
My streak is only three days.
So she invited me to join a challenge where we can compare our scrolling minutes and do exercises to earn more.
Okay, time to do some squats.
And I know that this gamified strategy is straight from the big tech playbook.
It's not going to let me cheat.
But it does make me feel a little bit closer to my friend in real life.
Maria Hollenhorst reporting.
Now, we've just posted a new article online.
Admittedly, you might have to look at it on your phone.
Trump rolls back tariffs on dozens of food products, not just from Switzerland either now.
You can check it out at bbc.com slash news.
From me, Andrew Peach and the team, thank you for being with us.
