Subject: Re: Berkshire and Tariffs
The tariff situation, as well as the situation with Canada, Panama, Greenland, NATO etc, has caught everyone's attention with many wondering "What is going on"?

Jennifer Burns, assoc professor of history at Stanford and research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative leaning think tank, has the best short explanation of the relation of Trump's tariffs and geopolitical issues that I've seen so far
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/0...

What's going on is that a economic and geopolitical plan is being executed, the plan is a public document written by Trump's head of Council of Economic Advisors Stephen Miran and endorsed by his Treasury Secretary Stephen Bessent
https://www.hudsonbaycapital.c......
It proposes to use tariffs and strong arm tactics to weaken the dollar. This would make exports more competitive, support U.S. manufacturing, and pressures China economically. It also relates to the USD being the world's reserve currency - so things get wonky fast. Burns does an excellent job of explaining how all this interconnects, along with some of the relevant history. What some see as surprising attempts by the Trump administration to strong arm other countries (Panama, Greenland, Canada, the NATO countries, etc) are laid out in the plan, which explicitly notes it intends to "intertwine trade policy with security policy." If countries don't agree to terms to be under the "fair trade" umbrella that's strong armed by the U.S., then they are no longer under the U.S. "security umbrella". Furthermore, weakening the dollar essentially declares economic war on China, who holds a huge amount of currency reserves and U.S debt. While not explicitly commenting on Trump's current tariff plan, Warren Buffett notes that tariffs are "an act of war to some degree" https://www.forbes.com/sites/r...

This is far from even being at the start of being over. Even if the immediate tariff issues are papered over with some immediate deals, and with deals to postpone tariffs to try to negotiate deals, the cover is paper thin.
It's very hard to do rational cap ex, or even to negotiate in good faith, if you think the rules of the game could be changed at any point in essentially the next four years.