Europe can import disillusioned talent from Trump’s US, says Lagarde

Europe may be able to attract “talent” from across the Atlantic following Donald Trump’s election, the European Central Bank president has suggested, as she called on the continent to better recognise its economic strengths. 

Christine Lagarde said Europe needed to get better at keeping its talent and savings at home, adding that the new US administration’s decision to freeze some funding for former president Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act might remove one of the incentives to invest in the US. 

Without making a direct reference to Trump, the French central banker indicated that some US residents might be attracted to Europe in the wake of the US inauguration. 

“We need to keep the talent at home. We need to keep the savings at home. Maybe it is also time to import a few of the talents that would be disenchanted, for one reason or the other, from another side of the sea,” she said.  

Lagarde’s words came on the closing day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, during which investors and executives highlighted the contrast between the upbeat mood about the US economy and deep pessimism about Europe’s weak growth prospects. 

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