Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary lamented that the Canadian government that will replace Prime Minister Justin Trudeau couldn’t negotiate tariffs with President Donald Trump.
Canada and Mexico are facing 25% tariffs slated to begin Tuesday. Additionally, 10% tariffs will go into place against Canadian energy. Meanwhile, China was handed down 10% tariffs to replace what was already in effect from Trump’s first term, which former President Joe Biden largely kept in place.
“There is no love lost between Trudeau and [Chrystia] Freeland and Trump. They had a bad relationship in this first mandate, it’s obviously gotten worse,” O’Leary said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Monday. “I would prefer — and many Canadians feel the same way and many investors, really I’m an investor — would rather have the new government in place to negotiate the new deal but that’s not what happened.”
O’Leary is Canadian by citizenship but invests on both sides of the border. He credited Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for keeping the energy tariff low by visiting Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Smith represents Alberta, Canada’s largest crude oil producer and the largest crude oil exporter to the United States. In 2023, the last year the data was available, Alberta sourced 87.4% of the total volume exported to its southern neighbor.
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“I look at this as the beginning of a negotiation,” O’Leary said of the tariffs. “The real opportunity comes out of the chaos, an economic union. I think this is the beginning of that narrative.”
According to an estimate from the nonpartisan think tank Tax Foundation, Trump’s latest tariffs could raise taxes by more than a trillion dollars between 2025 and 2034 if they continue that long. Canada has since announced retaliatory tariffs, which could raise taxes even further.
