Berkshire Hathaway reaches a historic $1 trillion market value
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has become the first non-technical US company to reach a market value of $1 trillion.
Straight Arrow News
Warren Buffett reiterated his stance on tariffs during Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders weekend in Omaha, Nebraska. What do billionaire investors think? He doesn’t like them yet.
International trade, trade barriers and tariffs were some of the first questions raised to Berkshire Hathaway, 94, during the question and answer session on Saturday morning.
“There’s no doubt that trade can become an act of war. I think it’s leading to something bad. That’s the only attitude that came in the US,” he said. “So we should be trying to trade with other parts of the world, and we should do our best and do what they should do with the best.”
Buffett previously called tariffs “some degree of war” in an interview with CBS News in March 2025. “As time goes by, they’re taxes on goods. That is, the tooth fairy isn’t paying!”
Warren Buffett: “Trade should not be a weapon”
When answering the first question at a shareholders meeting, Buffett recalls the “import certificate.” His proposal to balance and avoid his trade – laid out in a 2003 fortune telling essay – could be that a US exporter would win an import certificate and sell it in turn to a company that imports goods to import it into the US.
Buffett went on to say that free trade will help all countries. “We want a thriving world,” he said. Of the eight countries with nuclear weapons, including what I call highly unstable, I don’t think it’s a great idea to try and design a world that says “ha, ha, ha, we won” in a small number.
“Trade should not be a weapon,” he said. And the US doesn’t have to engage in a trade war because the country is already winning, Buffett said. “We started out in nothing 250 years ago and became an incredibly important country, and there’s nothing like that,” he said.
“The more prosperous the rest of the world, the less it will sacrifice us,” Buffett said. “The more prosperous we become, the safer we will feel and your children will feel one day.”
The tariffs and the resulting uncertainty were also addressed in Berkshire Hathaway’s quarterly report issued on May 3.
Mike Snyder is a reporter for the trending team at USA Today. You can follow him in the thread, send BlueSky, X with X and send him an email Bliss & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider &msnider@usatoday.com
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