Billionaire investor Warren Buffett has warned that trade should not be “used as a weapon” and that tariffs could be seen as an “act of war.”
The 94-year-old CEO of Berkshire Hathaway did not explicitly name President Donald Trump during his remarks at the company’s investor conference on Saturday, but said that decisions pitting the U.S. against the rest of the world were not “wise.”
The fallout from the tariffs – announced by the president on what he called “Liberation Day” – has continued, though markets have since recovered somewhat. Trump has argued that the levies should be used to negotiate more favorable trade deals with other countries.
“Trade should not be a weapon,” Buffett said. “And the United States… we’ve won. I mean, we have become an incredibly important country, starting from nothing 250 years ago.”
“There’s nothing like it. And it’s a big mistake, in my view, when you have seven and a half billion people that don’t like you very well, and you’ve got 300 million that are crowing in some way about how well they’ve done, and I don’t think it’s right and I don’t think it’s wise.”
He added: I do think that the more prosperous the rest of the world becomes, it won’t be at our expense, the most prosperous we’ll become, and then the safer we’ll feel, and your children will feel someday.
Buffett said that trade was one of the U.S.’s strengths and that it should be used for good, rather than making other countries “envious.”
"There is no question that trade can be an act of war. It has led to bad things — the attitudes that it has brought out. In the United States, we should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. And we should do what we do best and they should do what they do best,” he said, prompting applause from the audience.
“That’s what we did originally. We were good at producing tobacco and cotton 250 years ago, and we traded it. We want a prosperous world but eight countries with nuclear weapons, including a few that I would call quite unstable… I do not think it’s a great idea where a few countries say ‘hahaha we won,’ and other countries are envious."
Elsewhere at the conference, Buffett shocked investors by announcing that he would officially step down from his role as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year and hand over the reins to Greg Abel.
Abel, who was sitting on stage with Buffett at the time, reportedly had no prior warning of the announcement.
