Europe has a “real opportunity” to seize Americans fleeing Trump. Is it ready for a “brain flight”?

Russian-American * Julia wanted to leave the United States for a few years, but the start of President Donald Trump’s second term forced her to start taking the idea seriously.

“I noticed people who are immigrants (like me), they were much more worried after the elections occurred,” she told Euronews Next. “We saw the warning panels right away.”

The anesthesiologist has worked on the fronts of the COVVI-19 crisis in New York, but now wants to find a job in pharmaceutics or biotechnology somewhere in Europe.

Euronews then agreed to change her name to protect her identity while she is looking for work abroad.

Julia is one of the dozens of people who posted on the Reddit Channel Amer / Exit, a piece on words referring to Brexit, the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union. Like her, users of the sub-sousddit are trying to understand how to leave the United States for Europe or Canada following Trump’s second term.

Experts say it is “too early” to say if it could be considered a “brain flight” but that the EU must prepare.

“ We just couldn’t follow calls ”

Arielle Tucker is the founder of Connected Financial Planning, a company that helps Americans move to Europe.

Tucker has received more than 30 new American customers during the week after Trump’s re -election, a level of interest that has been supported in recent months.

Many Tucker customers are in mid-Tentaine or at the start of the forties and play management positions in technology, pharmaceuticals or finances.

“The general feeling that I obtained from many of these individuals was that they felt like they could not control anything and they had to do something,” said Tucker. “We just couldn’t follow calls.”

They work for multinationals with offices in Europe or can self-finance their move from a big American city like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco or Boston.

Its customers have thought of a “passively” move for a while, but they “realized that they simply do not like the political climate in the United States”.

Alex Ingrim, founder of the Liberty Atlantic Advisors Heritage Management Company, said more customers contact him with their visa processes in progress.

Its customers are older, from the mid-1940s and over 60s who worked on “digital nomad” jobs in technology, venture capital or retirement planning.

“Many people believe that the more they stay in the United States, the more uncertain they are about the quality of life and the way it could affect their financial well-being,” said Ingrim.

Where they go, it depends on what they are doing, said Tucker, but it’s often a game of “Whack-a-Mole” where they are trying to find the best immigration opportunity for their customers.

Countries like Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and Germany become particularly popular with Americans, said Tucker and Ingrim.

Europe has a “real opportunity” to market Americans

Tucker thinks that European companies have a “real opportunity” to market Americans to help them fill the expertise in the missing sectors, such as the IT sector, AI and pharmaceutical products.

But one of the greatest obstacles to Americans coming to Europe is a change in their wages, said Ingrim.

“You hear characters like in Paris, wages are a third of what they could be in Los Angeles or San Francisco,” he said. “I think it’s a financial roadblock with regard to how it will affect my future.”

Federico Steinberg, principal analyst of the economy and international trade at the Royal Elcano Institute in Spain, said companies should offer Americans higher or more advantages in their job offers such as housing aid to help them jump.

Steinberg said that a long -term clear image of the company’s career’s career after a five -year visa was also worth it.

“Europe, if it wants to become attractive, it has the potential,” said Steinberg. “He has the balance between professional and private life, he has culture, the leisure game … So everything is a question of career opportunities”.

It can also be complicated for Americans to move abroad due to a tax structure that makes it difficult for banks to work with them, added Tucker.

For example, if an American wants to save for retirement with a non -American pension, Tucker said that there were “American tax considerations often punitive around this”.

There are European financial services that try to create a market to support these Americans, said Ingrim.

“Before COVVI-19 and before the first Trump administration, most financial services would not work with the Americans, because we were not enough here,” he said. “Now I receive calls on this subject every month.”

To further mitigate this, Steinberg said that the EU could consider a short -term tax incentive to attract the best talents, as is already for the best athletes.

‘I can imagine being there’

Back in New York, Julia said that she was going if this decision made them a year and a half to plan because she wanted to carefully weigh on her decision.

It envisages Denmark, Germany or Switzerland because it has transferable skills for many of their pharmaceutical jobs.

Her parents also plan their retirement in Portugal, therefore moving to Europe would bring her closer to them.

However, she is worried that a new decision can let her feel isolated, lonely and lost, even if she wants to settle in a dynamic city where she could meet new people.

Despite these problems, there are very little that would convince her to stay, unless “the whole administration is charged or dismissed”.

“I can imagine being there (in Europe),” she said. “I feel excited when I look at the publications”.

* The name of the questioned person has been changed at their request to preserve their anonymity.