[On some levels, the meet made sense: Trump
wants to be seen as negotiator-in-chief, so why not meet with the head of a
trading empire? Ma, whose business was recently returned by the United States
to the list of “notorious markets” for selling fakes, got good press from the
soon-to-be most powerful man in the world.]
By Emily Rauhala
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President-elect Donald Trump walks with Alibaba
Executive Chairman Jack Ma
after a meeting at Trump Tower in New York. Mike Segar/Reuters
Jan. 9, 2017
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BEIJING
— Jack Ma, the billionaire
founder of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, strolled into Trump Tower on
Monday to talk to Donald Trump about a plan to create 1 million U.S. jobs — or
that’s how they sold it.
Trump’s incoming press secretary said the
tycoons would discuss “how Alibaba can create 1 million U.S. jobs by enabling 1
million U.S. small businesses to sell goods into the China and the Asian
marketplace.”
For its part, the company pitched it as a
certainty: “Alibaba,” it said in a statement, “will create 1 million U.S.
jobs.”
When Trump and Ma emerged, the
president-elect said it was a “great” meeting; Ma nodded. “Job Boom,” cooed
CNBC. So case closed on those million new gigs?
Hardly. For those seeking clues about the
president-elect’s foreign policy, Monday’s exchange confirmed two things: a
focus on trade and fuzziness on numbers.
On some levels, the meet made sense: Trump
wants to be seen as negotiator-in-chief, so why not meet with the head of a
trading empire? Ma, whose business was recently returned by the United States
to the list of “notorious markets” for selling fakes, got good press from the
soon-to-be most powerful man in the world.
But the deal they said they discussed — and
pitched to the press as fact — does not add up. “Theatrics,” said Duncan Clark,
the author of “Alibaba: The House that Jack Ma Built.”
He Maochun, an expert on economic diplomacy
at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, called it a “nice hope.”
Indeed, a look at the numbers suggests
Americans expecting 1 million actual jobs will almost certainly be
disappointed.
There’s no question that a million new jobs
would be big. And cooperating with Alibaba, which has close links to the
Chinese government, could theoretically be good for U.S.-China ties, which are
hurting after an election season filled with China-bashing by Trump.
The plan, such as it is, calls for the
creation of 1 million jobs over five years.
Given that the size of the U.S. labor force
is about 150 million, that number seems high. Think about it: In five years,
will more than 1 in 150 Americans work for Alibaba?
The number also seems out of step with
employment figures. Alibaba employs about 30,000 people. The company’s U.S.
competitor, Amazon, employs fewer than 300,000 around the world. (Amazon’s
founder and chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)
What Alibaba may be talking about is what
they sometimes call “job opportunities,” or, the chance for people to make
money selling goods on its platform. Millions of Chinese make money doing this,
and a million Americans could, potentially, do so, too — but that’s not what most
Americans think when they read headlines about 1 million jobs.
Nor are these jobs necessarily new. Ma has
been pitching his company as a U.S. job creator since before Trump was a
serious candidate for president, notes Clark. In a June 8, 2015, commentary for
the Wall Street Journal, Ma outlined a plan that sounded quite similar to what
he unveiled with Trump on Monday.
“Our U.S. strategy is simple and clear,” he
wrote. “We want to help U.S. entrepreneurs, small business owners, and brands
and companies of all sizes sell their goods to the growing Chinese consumer
class. Chinese consumers will get to buy the American products they want. This,
in turn, will help create American jobs and increase U.S. exports.”
It’s possible that the meeting with Trump made
Ma decide to step up his plans. But the move to give Trump credit for a done or
nearly done deal had recent echoes.
In December, for instance, Japanese
billionaire Masayoshi Son met with Trump and then said he planned to invest $50
billion in the United States, creating 50,000 jobs — and Trump took credit.
Half of that money, though, had been pledged before America chose its next
president.
Executives seem to reason they can gain a lot
by meeting with the president-elect. In Ma’s case, Clark said, it provided
“good optics” for a company battered by U.S. regulators. It could also provide
“inoculation” from a market-moving Trump tweet. Staying on his good side could
mean no late-night disparaging tweets like the one that sent Boeing’s stock
plummeting.
Trump, meanwhile, gets headlines about
“China” and “jobs” and an unofficial meeting with a man who has Beijing’s ear —
a “win,” as he might say.
But working closely with a company that U.S.
regulators consider an intellectual property thief could cost team Trump. Now
for sale on Taobao, the Alibaba platform famous for fakes: red baseball caps
that read “Make America Great Again” — knockoffs, all.
Congcong Zhang and Luna Lin reported from
Beijing.