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US wasted over $14 trillion in fighting wars over past 30 years

23 January 2017 11:43 (UTC +04:00)

In a CNBC clip, which slipped between the cracks last week, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who has been busy trying to get into Donald Trump's "circle of trust", spoke in Davos and blamed the problems of the United States on the United States itself, as a country which has spent trillions of dollars to wage war, instead of investing in infrastructure and its own people.

Asked by Andrew Ross Sorkin about Trump's decision to impose new tariffs on Chinese imports to protect domestic American manufacturers, Ma said blaming China for any economic issues in the U.S. 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."

According to Ma, the US wasted over $14 trillion in fighting wars over the past 30 years rather than investing in infrastructure at home. Ma named this as the main reason that the US economy is weakening.

Ma was not the only critic of the costly U.S. policies of waging war against terrorism and other enemies outside the homeland, however, the Alibaba founder said this was the reason America's economic growth had weakened, not China's supposed theft of jobs. In fact, Ma called outsourcing a "wonderful" and "perfect" strategy.

"The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization," 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?"

One answer: a couple of offshore bank accounts, or - now that Rothschild is managing Nevada tax havens - onshore.

He added that the U.S. is not distributing or investing its money properly, and that's why many people in the country feel wracked with economic anxiety. Ma added that 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.

At least in theory, much of this forms the basis of Trump's policies.

"You're supposed to spend money on your own people," Ma said. "Not everybody can pass Harvard, like me." In a previous interview, CNBC said that Ma said he had been rejected by Harvard 10 times. Along those lines, Ma stressed that globalization is a good thing, but it, too, "should be inclusive," with the spoils not just going to the wealthy few.

"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."