Trump Meets with CEO of China’s Biggest Ecommerce Company

“Forbes” contributor Jay Somaney wrote Tuesday that Donald Trump’s Monday meeting with Alibaba Executive Chairman Jack Ma “could prove that most of the president-elect’s tough talk on China will turn out to be just that”.

President-elect Donald Trump and China’s billionaire founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba held “great” talks in NY on Monday focused on creating United States jobs and enabling trade with Asia.

Ma gets on rather well with the Chinese authorities which is more than can be said for Trump.

Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma was spotted with President-elect Donald Trump at the Trump Tower last Monday. “It’s jobs. You just saw what happened with Fiat where they’re going to build a massive plant.in MI”. And we’re very happy.

“Confirmation is going great“.

“After which, Ma then quickly reiterated, “[We are just focusing] on small business“.

“Our results speak for themselves”, Alibaba Group President Michael Evans said in a statement at the time, which highlighted how the company had more than doubled the number of counterfeit listings it booted off its platform in the past year. One priority is getting Taobao off the U.S. government’s Notorious Markets list; though the list doesn’t directly penalize companies, it damages their credibility.

Trump has repeatedly attacked China for its economic policies and accused the country of stealing jobs from the US.

This characterization would appear to be a bit inconsistent with Trump’s increasingly belligerent stance toward China. He referred to President-elect Trump as being very smart and he dismissed any potential conflict with China. “He will never neglect the relationship between China and America”. Alibaba didn’t commit to hiring new staff in the US itself. I think every nomination will be – they’re all at the highest level.

Ma said the two shared “ideas about how we can improve trade”.

This, of course, isn’t the first time Trump has claimed responsibility for job creation without providing details on what those jobs are or being transparent about where they’re coming from.

Realistically, what will likely happen is Mom and Pop stores will set up e-commerce stores on Alibaba as a side business to tap into the China market, says Ben Cavender, director with China Market Research Group.

“It was a great meeting”, Trump said in a press conference after the meeting.

The meeting comes amid tensions between China and the incoming Trump administration.