I wrote this in Il Foglio, about tariffs and Walmart: ‘The medium-term scenario looks a lot like the one already seen with the Brexit: since 2016 the pound has lost 12 per cent against the euro and inflation in Britain has been 9 per cent higher than the Eurozone average.
Inflation in Britain, with Brexit, has taken a turn for the worse. Or if you want to look at it another way the European Union has given more stability to the prices (and therefore incomes) of its member countries.
But Brexit – and US-aligned policy – has allowed the development of innovative start-ups that the EU lacks:
… Indeed, this is the second state visit for Trump to Britain, following the one in 2018: an unprecedented honour, bestowed as a gift for keeping tariffs on London to a minimum.
On Thursday, the president will go to meet Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the Chequers’ residence: there, important technological agreements on Artificial Intelligence and quantum computers will be announced, accompanying already unveiled understandings on nuclear power. This is the crux of the visit, for the British: in Trump’s entourage are OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, with the Americans bringing a dowry of two billion in tech investments [in reality it is much more, see below] and a billion and a half in the financial sector, with names such as Blackrock, Bank of America and Citi in the field.
Thanks to Brexit, Great Britain has left the regulatory orbit of the EU and so is now able to put itself in the wake of the American technological revolution, positioning itself as a high-tech hub. But the moment of maximum risk will be the final press conference, when journalists will surely raise the Epstein case: and here the possible wrath of Trump could end up spoiling the party.
But if all goes well, it will be the diplomatic masterpiece of Starmer, who has managed to forge an unlikely yet cordial personal relationship with Trump. As disastrous domestically as he is adept internationally, Starmer has made post-Brexit Britain a crucial junction, whether we are talking about European security or new technological frontiers. And Trump comes to seal it.
Major US companies led by Microsoft have pledged £31 billion ($42 billion) to invest in the UK.
As Corriere Economia well captures below: ‘the knot is the EU’s lack of attractiveness, divided on capital and research’.
He adds, speaking of Europe’s largest industrial producer (Germany), the words are by economist Sandro Trento:
… “… the Germans have a banking system that is not suited to fostering the birth of unicorns [start-ups held by private individuals, not listed on the stock exchange and valued at a billion $] that instead need a different culture of entrepreneurial development. And certainly not the prudential logic applied by traditional credit institutions and instead the daily bread of independent funds’.
Clearly, on a scale, the considerations that can be made for the Germans apply to Europe’s second-largest manufacturer, Italy. Which has, according to Trento, the same chromosomes. Starting with the banking system.
Below is an article on the growing gap between the European economy and the rest of the world (Corriere Economia of 22 September 2025).
Published 17 September, updated 30 September 2025
