Chinese firms are already reassessing their investment projects in the United States of America following the election of Donald Trump on November 8, 2016 and his controversial Tweeter statements regarding Taiwan, tax increases for Chinese goods and the “one-sided trade” policy of China. If some statements materialize in 2017 or later, consequences could be huge for consumers of the world’s two largest economies. The U.S. retailers, gathered within the highly influent National Retail Federation (42 million jobs, combined sales of about US$2.6 trillion a year), disagree with most of Trump’s views, and they simply listed the key subjects to discuss with the new government. For instance, the heirs of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart’s Founder, have financed the Democrat campaign of Hillary Clinton via gifts, as allowed in the U.S. law, amounting US$ 714,000, whereas Trump did not receive a single dollar from them.

In November 2016, Beijing said it was planning to tighten the rules on Chinese investment capital leaving the country, introducing new reviews for foreign deals above US$10 and property investments by state-owned firms of more than US$1 billion.

In December, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Holdings returned to the U.S. list of global marketplaces known for counterfeit and pirated goods. Its Taobao platform, which was present on the list until 2012, has been listed again as a firm that don’t take enough measures to combat counterfeiting. Alibaba publicly questioned whether this decision might have been influenced by the current political climate between the U.S. and China.