Trump: I hiked Swiss tariffs because their prime minister was rude to me

By Brett Arends

Is it a national-security matter if a foreign leader speaks in a way the president doesn't like?

President Trump said he was raising tariffs on Switzerland.

President Trump had better hope that none of the nine justices on the Supreme Court were watching his performance on Larry Kudlow's TV show Tuesday night on Fox Business.

The high court is currently mulling Trump's claim that his sweeping, record-setting tariffs - imposed by presidential fiat - are constitutional because they are designed to protect "national security."

And yet, on Kudlow's show, he admitted that he slapped an extra 9% tariff on imports from Switzerland last year just because he didn't like the way the president of that country spoke to him on the phone.

"I couldn't get her off the phone," he told Kudlow, his former chief economic adviser. Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter had called because Trump had already slapped the country with a 30% tariff. "It was at 30% 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%," he said.

How's that for national security?

If that was the case with the Swiss tariffs, what about all the others?

The issue is especially crucial for investors because the tax revenues brought in by Trump's tariffs may play a key role in keeping the government somewhat solvent. Tariff revenues totalled about $20 billion a month at last count, estimated the number crunchers at the Yale Budget Lab. The Wharton Budget Lab, meanwhile, reckoned tariffs brought in $33 billion in revenues through the first five weeks of this year, most of it from the new tariffs imposed by Trump.

This will not make up for the massive loss of revenues from the tax cuts enacted throgh last year's One Big Beautiful Bill Act - but every bit counts.

The question before the Supreme Court isn't whether tariffs are good or bad economic policy, but whether they are constitutional.

Constitutional scholars across the political spectrum have serious doubts.

The constitution isn't ambiguous about tariffs. "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises," and "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," reads Article I, Section 8.

For that matter, the United States of America itself was created by a tax revolt against an arbitrary executive. Taxes arbitrarily imposed by the executive because, say, someone was rude to him would seem to go against both the letter and the spirit of the revolution of 1776.

Six of the nine Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents and like to call themselves "conservatives." If, after the latest admission, they still pretend the president's executive tariffs are in keeping with the U.S. Constitution - including the "original intent" of the Founding Fathers - it's hard to imagine why anyone would consider them "conservative" ever again.

Meanwhile, adding to the whole aura of professionalism, President Trump also didn't seem entirely certain it was the head of the Swiss confederation on the call. It was "a call from, I believe, the prime minister of Switzerland," he said. The possibility that it was a prankster on the radio may not be 0%.

-Brett Arends

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02-11-26 1259ET