The 1 million American jobs that Chinese billionaire Jack Ma promised he’d create following a 2017 meeting with then-President-elect Donald Trump are not coming, thanks to the trade war between the U.S. and China.
“The promise was made on the premise of friendly U.S.-China partnership and rational trade relations,” Ma, the founder and chairman of Alibaba Group Holdings BABA, +3.82% , told Chinese news site Xinhua on Wednesday. “That premise no longer exists today, so our promise cannot be fulfilled.”
Trump touted the job-creation promise made after a meeting with Ma at Trump Tower in early January 2017, before his inauguration. But that claim was dubious from the start. Rather than directly create jobs, Alibaba suggested it would invest more in U.S. companies, creating jobs indirectly as the U.S. brands expanded by selling more items to Chinese consumers through Alibaba’s e-commerce sites.
From the MarketWatch archives: Alibaba promises Trump it’ll create a million U.S. jobs, but don’t believe it
Ma lamented the current state of affairs. “Trade is not a weapon,” Ma told Xinhua. “It cannot be used for war, it should be a propeller for peace.”
On Tuesday, Ma, who recently announced he’ll retire next year, warned Alibaba shareholders that trade tensions between the U.S. and China will outlast Trump’s presidency, perhaps for the next 20 years. ‘It’s going to last long, [and] it’s going to be a mess,” he said.
On Monday, Trump imposed an additional $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, and threatened about $257 billion more — essentially all Chinese exports to the U.S. China responded Tuesday with $60 billion in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.
Alibaba’s shares rose slightly Wednesday, but are down almost 6% this year, compared to the S&P 500’s SPX, +0.13% 9% gain.
