European officials draft radical plan to take on Trump and U.S. tech companies

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. 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 President Trump’s trade war, saying the EU should slap tariffs unilaterally on the US. 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 US and China in the race to solidify themselves as the global economic powerhouses of the future.