Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (ticker: BABA) Executive Chairman Jack Ma was the latest tech tycoon to meet with President-elect Donald Trump, where the two talked about creating 1 million jobs in the U.S.
The question remains of where the jobs would originate. Alibaba would put these jobs in place over a period of five years, a company spokesperson told CNBC before Ma met with Trump.
“We’re focused on small business,” Ma said. “Small businesses on the platform selling products — agriculture products and America services — to China and Asia, because we’re pretty big in Asia.”
Trump seemed in good spirits after the meeting, despite a frosty start to his relationship with China as inauguration day looms. CNBC notes Trump suggested high tariffs for Chinese goods.
“We had a great meeting, and a great, great entrepreneur, one of the best in the world, and he loves this country, and he loves China,” Trump said. “Jack and I are going to do some great things.”
Ma, too, was cordial.
“We also think that the China and USA relationship should be strengthened — should be more friendly,” Ma said. “The door is open … [for] discussing the relationship and trade issues. I think the president-elect is very smart, he’s very open-minded to listen. I told him my ideas about how to improve trade, especially to improve small business, cross-border trade. … [Trump] has concerns, and he has solutions, that he wants to discuss with China and us.”
All this follows the leading U.S. trade official’s office returning Alibaba to a list of “notorious” counterfeit marketplaces, notes Recode. Alibaba has since sued counterfeiters trying to do business via the company’s Taobao platform.
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Alibaba’s (BABA) Jack Ma, Donald Trump Talked About Creating 1 Million U.S. Jobs originally appeared on usnews.com
