>Meanwhile Europe only got 40k WSPMs of 12+ nm capacity

EU leaders and VCs gave up on the electronics industry 20+ years ago and just kept offshoring it to the cheapest suppliers to lower costs and increase shareholder value.

You can validate this by looking at which sectors pay the highest EU wages and you'll see that hardware and electronics are not in the top.

And working in the electronics industry requires highly skilled knowhow and academic specialization, and you're not gonna attract people there if you don't pay them top wages if they can get more money and an easier job somewhere else like writing CRUD SW or pushing pencils in a bank.