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Ma says America squandered opportunity to be really great

by on20 December 2018


Wasted its cash on wars when it should have spent it on infrastructure

Alibaba founder Jack Ma fired a shot at the United States in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Ma was asked by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin about the US economy in relation to China, since President-elect Donald Trump has been talking about imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports.

Ma said blaming China for any economic issues in the US is misguided. If America is looking to blame anyone, Ma said, it should blame itself.

“It’s not that other countries steal jobs from you guys”, Ma said. “It’s your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way.”

He added that the US has wasted over $14 trillion in fighting wars over the past 30 years rather than investing in infrastructure at home.

To be sure, Ma is not the only critic of the costly US policies of waging war against terrorism and other enemies outside the homeland. Still, Ma said this was the reason America’s economic growth had weakened, not China’s supposed theft of jobs.

“The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalisation”, Ma said. “The past 30 years, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, they’ve made tens of millions — the profits they’ve made are much more than the four Chinese banks put together.  But where did the money go? ”

He said the US is not distributing, or investing, its money properly, and that’s why many people in the country feel wracked with economic anxiety. He said too much money flows to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Instead, the country should be helping the Midwest, and Americans “not good in schooling” too.

“You’re supposed to spend money on your own people”, Ma said. “Not everybody can pass Harvard, like me.” In a previous interview, Ma said he had been rejected by Harvard 10 times.

“The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together”, Ma said. “As a business person, I want the world to share the prosperity together.”

Last modified on 20 December 2018
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