U.S. President Donald Trump is “not anti-China” but any move away from globalization by the White House could be a concern to businesses across the world, CNBC has quoted the chief executive Lenovo as saying on Tuesday.
Even though Trump has often criticized China’s trade practices, Yuanqing Yang said that he doesn’t see a risk to the Chinese electronic giant’s business.
“I don’t see that risk because I think the China-U.S. relationship is the most important relationship in the world, we need each other,” Yang told CNBC in an interview at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) technology show in Barcelona, Spain.
“Most electronic devices are made in China. So actually ‘Made in China’ helps U.S. consumers to enjoy the lower-price, high-quality products. I think probably now, more U.S. brands are operating in China than Chinese brands operating in the U.S. At Lenovo we try to build a global brand, it’s not a Chinese brand.”
During his presidential campaign, Trump threatened to slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports in the U.S. Last week, the president also labelled China the “grand champions” of currency manipulation. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC on Thursday that the Trump administration would stick with existing processes on judging whether China manipulates its currency to gain unfair trade advantages. By those criteria, however, China does not match the U.S. definition of a currency manipulator.
Yang said however that the broader anti-global sentiment from Trump is a “concern” and could hurt global businesses. Lenovo is the world’s largest PC maker and is aggressively growing its smartphone business via the Motorola brand which it owns. It also sells devices in the U.S.
“Globalisation is important. It has benefited everybody,” Yang told CNBC.
Source: CNBC
