The nation’s foremost financial guru eviscerated President Donald Trump‘s trade war Saturday, slamming his tariffs as an “act of war” against allies.
“I don’t think it’s right, and I don’t think it’s wise,” billionaire Warren Buffett said at Berkshire Hathaway‘s annual shareholder meeting. “There is no question that trade can be an act of war, and I think it’s led to bad things, just the attitudes it’s brought out.”
Often referred to as “Woodstock for Capitalists,” the company’s annual shareholder meeting attracts roughly 40,000 people each year.
“Trade should not be a weapon,” Buffett told the crowd. “It’s a big mistake, in my view, when you have 7.5 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.”
He went on to say that other countries’ prosperity need not come at the expense of the United States’; Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly insisted that international trading partners are “screwing” the American people.
Over the past several weeks, the president has used that argument to launch an “America First” trade war against the rest of the planet, imposing tariffs as high as 145 percent on other countries (even remote Antarctic islands inhabited solely by penguins have not been spared).
Buffett appears wholly unconvinced this will yield the economic rewards Trump has promised but also expressed concerns over what these measures may mean for global security in the longer term.
“I do not think it’s a great idea to try and design a world where a few countries say, ‘Ha ha ha, we’ve won,’ and other countries are envious,” Buffett said. “The more prosperous [the world becomes] and the safer we’ll feel, and your children will feel one day.”
