I agree with him!

The richest man in China, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma, reckons the trade war is the beginning of a long-term battle for supremacy between China and the U.S.

He sees no effective short-term solution to this big global issue.

China needs to strengthen its economy to fulfill its long-term shift to stronger domestic consumption while focusing on the real global growth markets in Southeast Asia, India, and Africa.

That’s what its huge “belt and road initiative” and global investment program is all about.

Ma’s view is likely the same as the Chinese government.

If the U.S. wants to play hardball here, they’ll just make that shift to focusing on those other markets harder and quicker, beating the U.S. and Europe to them.

Currently, Trump has the near-term advantage. His September 17 hike to tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods – 10% on September 24 moving to 25% on January 1, 2019 – is 3.3 times China’s retaliation of tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. imports since September 18.

But China’s top-down government has always had a long-term time horizon. That’s why they are being so stubborn.

And like I started by saying: I couldn’t agree more with Ma.

Here’s a prominent chart from my recent Zero Hour book with Andrew Pancholi of the Market Timing Report…

This chart shows that the second great surge in globalization from 1949 to 2008 has already peaked and will see a multi-decade regression similar to the one between World War I and World War II.

The first wave peaked in 1912, just before WWI. 

The biggest crash in global trade came during that war because the modern world that dominated GDP was fighting… and warring nations not only don’t trade with each other, but they’re too busy producing war goods to export much.

That was a HUGE boon to the emerging U.S. We exported heavily to the allies even after joining the war later.