U.S to Add Alibaba Group in Trade Blacklist

U.S announced Today its plans to add Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd to a blacklist of Chinese companies.

Meanwhile, Alibaba and Tencent shares were both down roughly 3% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Tencent and Alibaba are China’s two most valuable publicly listed companies, with a combined market capitalization of over $1.3 trillion and scores of American mutual funds and other investors holding their shares, according to Reuters report.

Moreover, Alibaba’s New York-listed American depositary receipts fell more than 5% on Wednesday, while Tencent ADRs tumbled by about 4% in the U.S. over-the-counter market.

Later, President Donald Trump signed on Tuesday, a new executive order prohibiting transactions with the companies behind eight Chinese apps. The apps list includes: Alipay, CamScanner, QQ Wallet, SHAREit, Tencent QQ, VMate, WeChat Pay and WPS Office.

Meanwhile, the US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross confirmed that the ministry, will begin implementing the E.O.’s directives, including identifying prohibited transactions.

That move came follow two earlier ones from August that already tried to ban transactions with ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, and WeChat. However, a judge blocked the WeChat ban in September and again in October, while a judge granted a preliminary injunction stopping the TikTok ban in December.