Ali Baba’s Jack Ma: Trade war is the “most stupid thing” – Bloomberg

As reported by Bloomberg, co-founder of Chinese mega-company Alibaba and China’s richest person, Jack Ma, is weighing in on the US-China trade war reality, which Ma warns could last twenty years.

Key quotes

“China’s richest person — who warned just last month that a trade war could last two decades — argued it was pointless to target goods because the Asian nation was on its way to becoming a major buyer of foreign products. Indeed, it’s services — such as those on the internet — powering job growth, not old-school manufacturing, the outgoing Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. chairman told a business forum Monday.

Ma, whose online commerce empire is China’s largest corporation, has been a vocal opponent of tit-for-tat tariffs imposed on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of U.S.-Chinese goods. Donald Trump is now exerting pressure on the Asian nation to wind back its $423 billion trade surplus with the world. While the American President has floated the possibility of a deal when he meets his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in coming weeks, the two countries remain far apart on everything from market access to government support for state-run enterprises.

“Trade war is the most stupid thing in this world,” Ma said at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Xi, who addressed attendees in the morning, is touting the forum as a major showcase of the country’s purchasing power.”