Mark Cuban issues warning about doing business with China
When it comes to investing in China, Billionaire Mark Cuban warned businesses need to be vigilant.
“It depends on the company,” he told FOX Business’ Neil Cavuto during an exclusive interview on “Cavuto: Coast-to-Coast” on Monday in response to why businesses are holding back on capital spending. “If you have a global supply chain you need to be paying attention. If you do business with China or would like to do business with China, you need to be paying attention.”
Cuban, who has an estimated net worth of $4.1 billion, according to Forbes, earned his fortune through a bevy of business deals, including ownership of the Dallas Mavericks, investments made on ABC’s “Shark Tank” and the $5.7 billion sale of Broadcast.com.
CLICK HERE TO WATCH PART 1 OF CAVUTO’S INTERVIEW WITH MARK CUBAN
Cuban said there are big challenges to doing business in China—especially if you’re a smaller company. His own Guardian Bike company is having trouble, because one part can only be made exclusively in China, he said.
“We can't switch our supply chain. That's the only place we can get this one part. It's not like we [can] move to Vietnam we can't move it back to the United States,” he explained.
“And then on top of that we're paying tariffs,” he added. “Now we've applied for waivers we haven't heard back yet.”
CLICK HERE TO WATCH PART 2 OF CAVUTO’S INTERVIEW WITH MARK CUBAN
Cuban also raised questions about China trade negotiations. Although President Trump believes American companies will benefit from opening up market access to China, Cuban believes it will do the exact opposite.
“The bigger question to me is what's the end game?” he said. “If President Xi called up and said yes, yes to everything President Trump whatever you want the answer is yes. Then what happens? You know you can make the argument that Ok if we completely open up China are we just going to move more factories to China now? Because if we're going to be selling a lot more China has a lot more people than we do. Why wouldn't, you know, factories just move there because it's more central to a bigger market.”
CLICK HERE TO WATCH PART 3 OF CAVUTO’S INTERVIEW WITH MARK CUBAN
In respect to IP theft, Cuban also believes "espionage just moves to a different location."
“And so I think we have to be careful what we ask for and really follow through on the consequences of what we're trying to accomplish,” he said.