No more business class?
European business leaders don't seem much concerned about the prospect of another Trump presidency. Some even view it optimistically.
Not even Trump's expected unilateral trade moves seem to alter the equation much. In fact, such a move on Trump's part could provide European business leaders with political cover to help them justify shifting production out of Europe.
Motivation to shift capital and production out of Europe go well beyond the oft-cited lower cost of energy. To the West, labour productivity in the US on average grew 0.8 percentage points faster a year between 2008 and 2023 than in the eurozone. To the East, there is high growth potential and associated investment opportunities.
Whichever way you turn, many governments are eager to attract and accelerate investments, not slow them down or reject them, as seems to be the case all too often inside the EU.
To be sure, the EU excels in having regulations and plans for nearly everything while it often underperforms on execution. To give one example, only 55% of the EU's 'Digital Decade' goals are currently expected to be met by member states by 2030. No wonder European investor 'patriotism' is vanishing. Among investors, there is even a sense that the EU's economic fortunes increasingly resemble those of Hong Kong. Business leaders who had made fortunes as a bridge between mainland China and the rest of the world saw the writing on the wall as the Chinese Communist Party showed signs of shifting the island's priorities and began to cash out.
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