All of which may be true but misses the point. The size of the US market, and the availability of venture capital, means that there is no level playing field, a

All of which may be true but misses the point. The size of the US market, and the availability of venture capital, means that there is no level playing field, and it's therefore almost impossible for most non-US tech companies to compete. For various reasons, this may not wholly apply to Russian and Chinese companies, for example, but it certainly applies in Europe. There are no European tech companies with the size and power of Google , Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, Apple etc. Indeed, there are no European tech companies with the size and power of BMW, VW, and Fiat etc. Nokia, briefly, was a notable exception. If a non-US company is successful, it frequently gets taken over. Nokia, PayPal, Skype, and Minecraft are examples. > no amount of protectionism will change that. I wasn't suggesting protectionism. I was merely pointing out the facts of life in the tech market. Incidentally, none of this is new: it's been happening for decades. US companies also wiped out the European mainframe, minicomputer and PC companies before we got to the point where they are wiping out the internet companies. From the array that included companies such as Siemens, Nixdorf, ICL, Bull, Olivetti, Norsk Data, Acorn, Sinclair and dozens more, really only Siemens has survived, and that's because of its broad industrial base.