As the trade war between the USA and China gathers momentum, Alibaba founder Jack Ma has announced that his firm’s pledge to create one million jobs in the USA has been suspended indefinitely. Ma had previously said that he wanted to increase Alibaba’s presence in the USA and strengthen relations between the two countries.
He has now instead said; “There is no way to complete the promise, but we will not stop our efforts and will work hard to promote the healthy development of Sino-USA trade.” Adding, “The trade in the world really needs to be perfected, but trade is not a weapon, it cannot be used for war, it should be a propeller for peace.”
The US government has imposed a third wave of tariffs on US $200bn of Chinese goods in including consumer products like handbags, luggage and kitchenwares. This now means that almost half of all of the products that the USA buys from China will have tariffs on them. Prices for US consumers buying Chinese manufactured goods will increase as a result and US buyers will start to look for other sources of supply.
China has reciprocated by applying tariffs on US$60bn of US goods and, according to reports, is likely to go further.
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