The Swiss president at the meeting is Guy Parmelin, President of the Swiss Confederation for 2026.
They refer to a Swiss government commitment and linked private‑sector commitments tied to a late‑2025 deal with the U.S. that cut Trump’s 39% tariffs on Swiss goods to 15%; public reporting says Switzerland (and Swiss businesses) agreed to large U.S. investment and commercial commitments (reported as about $200 billion in press coverage) to secure the tariff reduction.
It’s shorthand for a small‑number transcription/rounding result in the remarks; Parmelin says the latest statistics show a surplus “plus 8.8 US dollars in the favor of US,” which is not a meaningful standalone trade figure but likely a garbled reference to a larger trade balance or per‑unit/percentage value in recent statistics rather than literally $8.80 overall.
“Ambassador Gingrich” in the remarks is the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland referenced by Guy Parmelin; the transcript does not give a full name. Public reporting on the bilateral meeting and U.S. diplomatic posts confirms Switzerland’s U.S. ambassador is involved in the talks but the transcript alone doesn’t identify the ambassador’s official name or full role beyond being the U.S. ambassador in Switzerland.
“Zalena” appears as a reporter’s question asking whether the president would meet “Zelenskyy”; based on the exchange, it’s a transcription/mis‑rendering — the question was about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump was reported to meet at Davos.
The names Mr. St. Gregory Bassett, Mr. Lebnik and Mr. Rear (as spoken in the excerpt) appear in Parmelin’s remarks as attendees or colleagues to be in meetings the next day, but the transcript does not provide identities or official titles; I could not find corroborating public identities for those exact names in reporting of the Davos meeting.
They did not name specific drugs or companies during the public remarks. The discussion refers generally to Swiss pharmaceuticals coming to the U.S. (a sector that includes major Swiss firms such as Novartis and Roche), but the transcript contains no explicit product or company names.