DONALD Trump, US president-elect, is going to work. The first thing he did was to meet the top technology titans, who are considered crucial components of US business. Almost all of the tech leaders were not supporting him during the elections.
Among the people who met Trump were Apple boss Tim Cook, Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon founder and also Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, Microsoft chief executive officer (CEO) Satya Nadella, as well as top executives from Google, Intel, Facebook, Oracle, IBM and Cisco.
Trump has gone on record that he would slap 45 percent tariff on Apple’s products unless they start manufacturing in the United States, and has heavily criticized IBM for heavily offshoring American work.
For the last five years, IBM has consistently downsized US operations and offshored the work. In return, IBM CEO Ginna Rometty has pledged to recruit 25,000 Americans in the next four years to shore up American jobs.
Trump, in the last few weeks, was able to keep some American jobs by talking personally to companies, but this comes at a price. The companies agreed only when given tax breaks or subsidies for training.
The tech industries have the most at stake, because many tech companies have famously kept hundreds of billions in profits overseas to escape taxation, and they have the most to say about granting working visas for skilled workers, as well as government policy on the export of products, and also in keeping trade open and unhampered.
Meanwhile, in another development, Tianjin Tianhai, a Chinese company has acquired Ingram Micro, a US-based company that is reputed to be the world’s biggest technology distributor. The purchase price was reportedly over $6 billion. Ingram Micro is another company that joins the list of American companies now owned by Chinese entreprenuers.
(wilson@ngkhai.com)