Yahoo Finance Alibaba tells Trump it 'supports American businesses'
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (BABA), has moved to ease tensions with Donald Trump, as the US president continues his war on Chinese firms.
In an effort to remove itself from Trump’s crosshairs, chief executive Daniel Zhang, said the online retailer’s policies “support American brands, retailers, small businesses and farmers.”
Over the last couple of months geopolitical tensions between the two nations heightened, after a series of moves by the US president in the continuing showdown with Beijing.
Chinese companies listed on US stock exchanges, face renewed fears as Trump says he could put pressure on them, after he signed two executive orders against video-sharing app TikTok and messaging platform WeChat, effectively banning US firms from doing business with them from 15 September.
Earlier in August, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo also called for US technology firms to cut ties with Chinese companies, including cloud computing firms like Alibaba, Tencent (TCEHY) and Baidu (BIDU), as part of its “Clean Network” programme.
Meanwhile, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on US firms that refuse to move jobs from overseas back to American shores.
READ MORE: Trump steps up Chinese tech war with new TikTok and WeChat executive order
The comments come after Alibaba beat quarterly revenue and profit forecast, after the tech giant was boosted by strong online sales and cloud computing services.
Sales in the core e-commerce business were up 34% to $19.3bn (£14.6bn).
Benefitting from the shift to online shopping and working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic, the online retailer saw consumers in its Chinese marketplace hit 742 million, up by 16 million from the year to the end of March.
The company was co-founded in 1999 by Jack Ma, an English teacher-turned-entrepreneur, as the second largest online retailer, Alibaba is valued at $706bn, behind e-commerce giant, Amazon (AMZN), on $1.7trn.
Alibaba’s shares have soared 20% this year after global investors poured money into technology companies, after they benefitted from lockdown restrictions and people working from home.
