European CEOs react to America’s new leader

“I think Trump gives America a really good chance to revive its animal spirit. There will be less regulation, there will be more energy supply, there will be more of a sense of markets functioning and [less] regulation, and I think Trump is a shot in the arm for business. But I think business has to work its way through how it balances other stakeholders, employees and others on issues like DEI, sustainability [and so on],” he said.

On Trump’s inauguration: “I think it’s also a wake-up call for Europe. I think that also Europe needs to really focus on the economy and on growth.”

“We need to become more competitive. We need to have more labor productivity. We need to invest more in AI, we need to invest in the Capital Markets Union to, let’s say, improve the flow of the capital in Europe. So I think many things that he [Trump] says, to some extent, also apply to Europe, and the focus of Europe should be on the competitiveness of this region, and that will help the entire society here as well,” he added.

“We’re still digesting. That’s the fair assessment. I think it will take us a while to understand, but we are carefully listening. But as always with Mr. Trump, there’s some things that are being said and others that are being done, and we need to separate between the two,” he said.

On the risk of Europe falling further behind: “Yeah, that risk is absolutely there … but we should not point to Mr. Trump. We should look in front of our own house, take the sweeper and start working on what, through regulation, is … the starting point, tons of stuff to be done.”

“I think that the return of President Trump to the White House implies more uncertainty in terms of policy. It implies also more volatility for markets, and this is something that we’re going to see in the coming weeks and months, so we need to be ready for that also, I think that the market is trying to understand what may be the actual reach of the tariffs that the United States imposes on other countries,” he said.

“Yesterday, I think there was a mention about Canada and Mexico, but there are other very important countries that may be subject to tariffs or not, depending on how things go. So I think that that policy uncertainty is going to be there, and I think that’s going to be an important driver for markets in the short term.”

“Purely financially for a lot of American companies it’s going to be very positive… as a financial investor it’s generally very exciting… when we talk to CEOs, and we speak to a lot of them, we really see this animal spirit coming back.”

“We have to admit that the Paris Agreement has not delivered any of the plans, ambitions, targets that were expected. It’s also true that we’re looking for other means to achieve the reduction in the temperature that is badly needed. I mean that technology needs to help. So no, [I] don’t think this is the big event,” he said.

“It’s very early days to absorb everything. The first thing I’d say, like Trump version 1.0, he does what he says he’s going to do, and so I don’t think there’s huge uncertainty about the priorities he’s laid out. As always, it’s going to be how these things are implemented and how they have an impact on the world. Look, our base case for this year is quite simple. It’ll be good for U.S. growth we think, it’s likely to slow international growth,” he said.

Re Trump’s health secretary pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Narasimhan said: “We have a challenge right now because, on the one hand, we have a leader of the department of HHS [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] who has outwardly said some pretty anti-scientific statements. And yet we have to work constructively with this administration to get policy changes that are important for our industry and yet still stand for vaccines, stand for science.”

“Our conversations with the administration have actually been very positive. There are obviously areas of disagreement, but I think overall this is actually going to be a better environment for us than the past four years,” he added.

CNBC reached out to RFK Jr’s campaign group for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.