Trump Says He Raised Country’s Tariffs By 9% After Not Approving of Leader’s Tone in Phone Call: Didn’t ‘Like the Way She Talked To Us’

President Donald Trump recalled punishing a world leader with steeper tariffs after being dissatisfied with her tone during a phone conversation.

Trump joined Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow, who served as the director of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first administration, on Tuesday where he declared that “only stupid people and people who really hate Trump” could stand against his reciprocal tariff strategy.

The president recalled during a discussion on tariffs that he hit Switzerland with a steeper tariff after being unhappy with the leader’s tone during a phone call. Trump said he spoke to Switzerland’s “prime minister,” though he appeared to be referring to the country’s former president, Karin Keller-Sutter, who served through December of last year.

Trump said he spoke to her and she was not happy about a 30% trade tariff her country was being slapped with. Trump responded by raising the tariff by 9%. Trump claimed the world leader was “very aggressive” on the phone lead to a steeper punishment tariff, at least temporarily.

He said:

I put on a 30% tariff, which is very low. Still, we were having a big deficit but it was half the deficit and 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. “We are a small country,” and I said, “you may be a small country, but we have a $42 billion deficit with you.” “No, no, we are a small country.” Again and again and again, I couldn’t get her off the phone. So 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%, 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.

Trump previously referred to the same call while speaking in Davos, describing Switzerland’s leader as rubbing him the wrong way with the pushback to his tariffs.

“She just rubbed me the wrong way, I’ll be honest with you,” he said at the World Economic Forum.

Watch above via Fox News.

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