If the European Union was, as Donald Trump claims, formed “to screw the United States”, nobody told its companies. The stock of foreign direct investment in America held by EU businesses reached more than $2trn in 2023, accounting for nearly two-fifths of the country’s total, up from a third a decade before. That is far more than from any other source. European companies employ around 3.5m people in America, more than American ones do in the bloc. Germany’s car-industry association says its members have 140,000 workers across 2,000 factories in America, producing 900,000 vehicles a year.
