Why Europe failed to match America’s tech boom

If elected president, Donald Trump has promised to get medieval with America’s foes and show some tough love to our supposedly freeloading frenemies. So how would a President Trump have handled the European Union’s demand that Apple pay Ireland some $14.5 billion (plus interest!), ruling the company had received illegal state aid?

You’d think Trump’s reaction would be fierce, especially since the Apple spat is only the latest conflict between European officials and America’s technology giants. Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have all entered the EU’s crosshairs on issues such as tax, privacy, regulation, and anti-trust.

Now, we don’t know exactly what Trump would do. But we do know at least one thing he wouldn’t do: Launch retaliatory tax claims or tariffs against Europe’s tech behemoths. Why not? Simple: There just isn’t a bevy of European tech giants to go after.

Forbes annually ranks the world’s largest companies based on revenue, profit, assets, and market value. In its 2016 compilation, seven of the top 10 tech companies in the world were American. Europe has just just three companies in the top 20: Germany’s SAP, Sweden’s Ericsson, and Finland’s Nokia. And there’s a simply massive size difference between America’s top tech firms and Europe’s. For instance: Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon each have a market cap of over $350 billion each. Europe’s tech trio: about $50 billion a pop.

 
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Why Europe failed to match America’s tech boom

 
Πηγή: American Enterprise Institute