'It's Like My Own Death' — Charlie Munger Warned America Will Be Ruined 'Our Turn Is Bound To Come' And Called U.S.-China Trade War 'Massively Stupid'

Most people don't sit around thinking about their own death. Or the national debt. Charlie Munger, the late vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, didn't particularly enjoy pondering either—but he still saw both as inevitable. And if you throw in a trade war with China? Well, to him, that just sped things up.

Back in 2019, when the national debt stood at $22 trillion, Munger delivered one of his famously blunt observations during an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick. He called that figure "uncharted territory"—a term that now seems almost modest compared to the ever-mounting debt making headlines today.

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He explained, "It's a cinch that a great nation will, in due time, be ruined. Whether it's Rome, whether it's Britain in its heyday, they all pass. And, so our turn is bound to come someday. But I don't like thinking about it too much. It's like my own death."

"Why should I enjoy thinking about it? But is it coming some day? Sure. Of course it is," Munger added. 

Now, the U.S. national debt has crossed $36.2 trillion. That's a $14 trillion leap in just six years. Munger, who died in 2023 at the age of 99, didn't live to see this new peak—but he might've shrugged and said, "I told you so."

But debt wasn't the only thing Munger warned about that year. He also weighed in on the growing friction between the U.S. and China—particularly around trade.

"I think that the advantages to United States and China, to getting along, are so great on both sides, that I anticipate that they will reach some tolerable adjustment," he said.

That adjustment took its time.

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Last month, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods surged to a historic 145% before both countries agreed last week to reduce them temporarily for 90 days. The move was meant to cool things off, not solve them.     

Consumer prices remain elevated. Businesses are still hesitant. And the word "stable" is nowhere to be found.

Munger called a full-blown tariff war "massively stupid." His reasoning was simple: hurting each other out of pride rarely ends well. "Both sides will feel roughed up," he said. "A good settlement is better than a lovely world war."

Even now, that logic holds. The U.S. and China didn't walk away from the fight unscathed. And neither walked away entirely.

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Munger also said he was fine with some limits on free trade, so long as they weren't extreme:

"I don't want many, and I don't want them to be huge. But some limits on the operation of free trade are quite acceptable."

It's clear his advice wasn't about ideology—it was about restraint. The way he saw it, ignoring problems like runaway debt or destructive trade behavior didn't make them go away. It just delayed the reckoning.

And whether it's the collapse of empires or balance sheets, he believed the pattern always plays out the same way. Just slower than people expect—until suddenly, it doesn't.

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