Switzerland had negotiated early. The deal it offered “was not so different from that of the European Union”, says a senior Swiss official. It contained similar pledges to invest in America, an overall tariff rate lower than the EU’s and other goodies.

The two-minute video isn’t subtle. Wielding a medieval halberd, the president of the conservative Swiss People’s Party lays out the choice Switzerland faces: a simpler life that the country’s founders spelled out in a one-page declaration more than 700 years ago or a 2,