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Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary doesn’t think incoming U.S. President Donald Trump should bother talking to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for one simple reason: he’s going to be out of a job soon.
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On Monday evening, Trump threatened to impose a 25% tax on all products entering the U.S. from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% tariff on goods from China, when he takes over as America’s 47th president in January.
“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” he wrote in a post to his Truth Social platform, complaining that “thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before.”
He said the new tariffs would remain in place “until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”
“Both Mexico and Canada have the absolute right and power to easily solve this long simmering problem. We hereby demand that they use this power,” he went on, “and until such time that they do, it is time for them to pay a very big price!”
A senior Canadian government official said Trudeau and Trump spoke after Trump’s posts and had a good conversation.
But during a stop on Fox News’ The Big Money Show, O’Leary suggested Trump should be negotiating with Trudeau’s political rival, and Canada’s likely next prime minister, Pierre Poilievre.
“Trudeau is a really unpopular leader,” O’Leary said. “He’ll be getting whacked soon. The endgame in the parliamentary system is so brutal — look what happened in England just recently. It’s about to happen to him. Trump will not be negotiating with Trudeau. He’ll be dealing with a guy named Pierre Poilievre.”
O’Leary predicted that Poilievre and the Conservatives will be handed a majority mandate whenever the next election is called and said he and Trump should start working together now.
“I think Trump should invite him down to Mar-a-Lago now,” he continued in the segment that has been viewed over 136,000 times on X. “I don’t know what the protocol and all that is, but he’ll be dealing with Pierre.”
After co-host Brian Brenberg suggested that Poilievre and Trump will get along because they are more ideologically aligned, O’Leary said that Canada under the Conservatives will thrive.
“Here’s what Poilievre has already said. ‘I’m gonna lift the ban on pipelines. I’m going to kill the carbon tax to be competitive with Texas and I’m going to open all kinds of investment in Canada.’ That’s Trump’s kind of guy. I know he talked to Trudeau, but Trudeau is checking out of dodge.”
“Exactly,” one person commented after watching O’Leary’s reasoning. “Trump should just seal the relationship with Poilievre now and bypass whom we shall soon be unburdened by.”
After Trump’s announcement, Trudeau said he will be convening a meeting of all of Canada’s premiers “this week” to discuss the threat of a 25% tariff.
“We obviously talked about laying out the facts, talking about how the intense and effective connections between our two countries flow back and forth. We talked about some of the challenges that we can work on together,” Trudeau told reporters of his conversation with Trump.
But Ontario Premier Doug Ford called Trump lumping Canada in with Mexico “unfair” and “insulting.”
“It’s like a family member stabbing you right in the heart,” Ford said.
Meanwhile, Poilievre called Trump’s threat “unjustified” and added that “Canadians need a Prime Minister with the brains and the backbone to stand up for this country.”
O’Leary has criticized Trudeau’s leadership during his nine-year term and at one point ran for leadership of the Conservative party to have a chance to turf him out of office himself.
During a recent appearance on the Full Send podcast that has garnered over one million views on YouTube, Kevin O’Leary declared Trudeau “the worst prime minister the country’s ever had” and said the Liberal leader is “killing the country.”
“I don’t like that guy,” the Dragons’ Den alum replied when co-host Kyle Forgeard asked him if he’s ever spoken to Trudeau. “Not because he’s a bad person, he’s just a horrible manager.”
O’Leary then lambasted Trudeau for picking Chrystia Freeland as Finance Minister. “He put a journalist in for finance minister with no skills whatsoever in finance, never ran a bank. I mean, why would you do that? And of course, she’s a total failure,” he said. “She disseminated (Canada). Capital is leaving Canada like crazy.”
In another interview with Daniela Cambone earlier this month, O’Leary had an even harsher assessment as he likened Trudeau to “a mouse in the kitchen.”
“His own cabinet has a broom and they’re trying to get him,” he said. “They’re going to get him. They’re going to get that little mouse pretty soon and it’s gonna be great … I don’t care if they replace him with a goat. It’s better than what we got right now.”