Update | Alibaba offers Trump 1 million US jobs, builds bridge for Sino-US ties
Trump says he had a ‘great meeting’ with Alibaba founder
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma has offered the company’s e-commerce platform to help US businesses sell products to Asia, with the potential of creating up to 1 million American jobs, giving Donald Trump bragging rights of fulfilling his campaign vow even before he formally takes office.
In the process, Alibaba is setting a positive tone for Sino-US relations in the mode that the US president-elect understands best, which could help smooth ruffled feathers should trade conflicts flare up in future, analysts said.
“Trump’s meeting with Ma sends a positive signal that could help Trump better understand the importance of Sino-US economic relations,” said Fu Mengzi, deputy director of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.
“After all, he has had businesses in China and has come to China before. It means he’s attaching importance to the relationship between the two countries.”
In their 40-minute meeting at Trump Tower in New York, Ma said he shared ideas with the US president-elect about ways to improve trade, and offered Alibaba’s platforms to support up to 1 million US vendors to sell to China and Southeast Asia.
For Trump, the meeting offered an opportunity to realise his campaign pledge to create jobs and bolster American commerce, as well as smooth over anxieties about the potential impact of his trade policies.