The country of Liechtenstein is tucked away in a valley between the Swiss and Austrian Alps. It’s so tiny you could fit it four times over into New York City and still have room to spare.
But in trade, it punches above its weight.
This alpine paradise is home to several world-class makers of premium products, and that’s made it a target for President Trump’s tariffs.
Among the country’s exports are power tools, cables, connectors and high-quality fillings and false teeth. Everything will now have a tariff imposed at the US border of 37% — which is almost double the tariff that will be applied to Liechtenstein’s European neighbors.
Dr. Gerald Hosp, an economist with the Zukunft think tank, says, essentially, the country is being punished for making things Americans want to buy, but its ability to defend itself is limited.
“Liechtenstein is so tiny and doesn’t have an influence in the world, so how to deal, really, with the Trump administration?” he said.
Liechtensteiners don’t understand why — just because they don’t buy as many things from the U.S. as they sell to it — they’ve been clobbered.
Peter Laukusa, a former banker, called the 37% tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on Liechtenstein “irrational.”
“I’m laughing because Liechtenstein is 40,000 people!” he said.
Elizabeth Schaepper is puzzled too. She said, “You must be laughing because otherwise you’d just be crying.”
Liechtenstein is an orderly and peaceful place. It doesn’t even have an army.
What it does have is a stable and secure business environment, which is at odds with Mr. Trump’s approach to world trade.
Patrik Schadler, the editor of the Vaterland, Liechtenstein’s daily paper, says the tariffs amount to a bigger crisis for his country than the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Because you don’t know what’s coming next,” he said. “You wake up in the morning and you have to check the news and see what Mr. Trump decided the night before.”
“With the pandemic, at least you had a fixed problem and we could develop a solution. With Mr. Trump, we just don’t know.”
