Trade war USA-China? So boring...
European officials draft radical plan to take on Trump and U.S. tech companies
In a bid to counter Trump, EU officials are proposing to unilaterally slap tariffs on the United States.
European Union officials have drawn up an aggressive 173-page plan to counter both President Donald Trump’s trade moves and American tech giants including Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook.
According to a document obtained by POLITICO, European Commission officials are pushing their president-elect, Ursula von der Leyen, to set up a European Future Fund that would invest more than $100 billion in equity stakes in high-potential European companies.
The goal: get Europe competing head-on with the American and Chinese tech giants it has lagged behind for decades.
They’re also advocating for Europe to show more grit in Trump’s trade war, saying the EU should slap tariffs unilaterally on the United States.
While it’s unclear if the proposals will gain traction, the framework amounts to the most forceful acknowledgment yet that Europe is at risk of slipping further behind the U.S. and China in the race to solidify themselves as the global economic powerhouses of the future.
The shadow of Brexit — the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union on October 31 — also looms over the proposals. As an EU member, the market-oriented U.K. would almost certainly veto any such proposals. Without U.K. influence, the EU is free to pursue the more interventionist economic policies France and Germany have long-favored, with mixed results.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/...panies-1472326
