Trump meets with billionaire founder of China’s Alibaba
President-elect Donald Trump met with Alibaba founder Jack Ma on Monday and promised that the two would do “some great things.”
“We had a great meeting,” Trump told reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower, according to pool reports. “And a great, great entrepreneur, one of the best in the world. And he loves this country and he loves China.”
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Ma, who is the richest person in Asia, told reporters that the two discussed how to help small businesses in the U.S. sell agricultural products to consumers in Asia.
Before the meeting, a spokesman for Alibaba said that the plan would help create 1 million new jobs in the U.S.
“Jack plans to share how Alibaba will create 1 million U.S. jobs by enabling 1 million small businesses to sell American goods to China and Asian consumers on the Alibaba platform,” Brion Tingler said in a statement to CNN.
Trump has met with a number of private sector leaders, including Silicon Valley executives, since being elected. On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to get tougher on trade and renegotiate deals he said hurt American workers.
The president-elect noted the news that Fiat Chrysler would be investing $1 billion in U.S. factories and said that he and Ma would be focusing on helping small businesses.
“You just saw what happened with Fiat, where they’re going to build a massive plant in the United States, in Michigan, and we’re very happy and Jack and I going to do some great things. Small business, right?”
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