Recently, at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting, 94-year-old Warren Buffett committed what some apparently consider an act of rebellion. He spoke plainly and stated a simple fact: Tariffs are taxes paid by Americans, not by foreigners.
In today’s political climate, Buffett’s honesty about non-complex economics and simple arithmetic may seem revolutionary. The response to such clarity has been revealing.
Many of those who now call themselves conservative — particularly those aligned with President Trump — attack Buffett as an elitist globalist, out of touch with ordinary Americans. The very people who once defended free markets now embrace government manipulation of trade. Words have lost their meanings. “Conservative” no longer conserves anything recognizable.
Consider the absurdity: A billionaire investor, often painted as a liberal by right-wing media, defends the economic principles that built American prosperity. Meanwhile, self-proclaimed conservatives champion massive government intervention in markets through universal tariffs that function as one of the largest tax increases on ordinary citizens in modern history.
This is not merely hypocrisy. It is a form of political doublethink that would have fascinated George Orwell. “Free market” now means “government-controlled trade.” “America First” means “Americans pay more.” “Conservative principles” means “radical economic nationalism.” The corruption of language precedes the corruption of thought.
Buffett, in his quiet Midwestern way, refuses to participate in this linguistic sleight of hand.
“I’ve been investing through 14 presidential administrations,” he noted, “and prosperity has never depended on who sits in the White House so much as on the ingenuity and energy of the American people operating in reasonably free markets.”
There is a profound conservatism in this statement — one that respects both markets and human agency over political saviors.
Barry Goldwater’s “The Conscience of a Conservative” once represented the intellectual foundation of American conservative thought. Its central tenet was skepticism about government power: “The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power they have been given.”
Today’s economic nationalists seek precisely the opposite — more power to dictate trade terms, pick winners and losers, and centrally manage complex economic relationships.
The dishonesty is breathtaking. Trump’s previous tariffs cost American households approximately $1,300 annually. His proposed universal tariff would extract far more from working people’s pockets. Yet supporters of these policies claim to represent the working class against elites. Orwell would recognize this immediately: power using language to disguise its true intentions.
What makes Buffett’s intervention significant is not just his wealth or experience, but his clarity in an age of deliberate confusion. When he states that tariffs harm American competitiveness by raising input costs, restricting export markets and stifling innovation, he isn’t expressing an ideology. He’s describing observable reality. The fact that such statements now seem controversial reveals how far political discourse has deteriorated.
As Buffett prepares to pass the torch at Berkshire, his warnings about protectionism carry a weight that transcends political affiliation. He has witnessed the postwar economic expansion fueled by increasing trade, the stagflation of the 1970s partially driven by protectionist measures, and multiple boom-bust cycles since. His conclusion is not an opinion but an observation: free exchange creates prosperity; government barriers reduce it.
Those who now claim the conservative mantle while rejecting market principles are engaged in a project Orwell would recognize: the destruction of meaning itself. If “conservative” can mean “radical protectionism,” if “free trade” can mean “government-managed trade,” if “fiscal responsibility” can mean “massive tax increases through tariffs,” then political language has been hollowed out, becoming merely sounds that signal tribal affiliation.
The truth is simpler than the rhetoric suggests. When governments impose tariffs, their own citizens pay the price. When nations retreat behind trade barriers, their economies stagnate. When politics trumps economic reality, prosperity suffers. These aren’t liberal or conservative propositions — they’re historical observations verified repeatedly across cultures and eras.
Buffett’s message was conservative in the truest sense: skeptical of government’s ability to improve on free exchange, respectful of markets as information-processing systems, and mindful of unintended consequences from well-intentioned interventions. As Buffett’s remarkable career approaches its conclusion, his defense of economic rationality against nationalist fervor provides a final service to a country increasingly unmoored from reality. In an age where political tribes redefine words to serve power, his plain speaking about tariffs reminds us that economic laws, like gravity, operate regardless of our wishes or rhetoric.
America doesn’t need political figures promising economic salvation through government intervention. It needs what it has always needed: the freedom to exchange goods and services without unnecessary barriers, the rule of law that protects property and contracts, and leaders honest enough to admit that prosperity comes from the bottom up, not the top down. On these matters, Buffett speaks an increasingly rare truth to an increasingly hostile power.
Stephen Schneider holds an M.D. and studied philosophy before transitioning to finance. He has followed the value-investing principles of Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett for three decades.
