“Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary said Monday that the concept of the U.S. and Canada merging into one country is “very interesting.”
“I went to Palm Beach for a couple of days. On Saturday, we discussed Canada,” O’Leary said Monday evening on “The Hill” on NewsNation. “You know, Trump says outrageous stuff. Everybody knows that. And he does policy by social media currently, but it causes a lot of … a lot of activity, let’s call it that.”
“And so, within that idea, there’s some very interesting concepts,” he told host Blake Burman. “One of them would be the economic union, ‘cause … Canadians don’t wanna give up their sovereignty but … what he said was, ‘Let’s get more powerful,’ ’cause economic success is power in today’s world.’”
The investor’s comments follow President-elect Trump’s pitch that the U.S. and Canada merge in the wake of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announcing his resignation.
“If Canada merged with the U.S., there would no Tariffs, taxes would go way down, and they would be TOTALLY SECURE from the threat of the Russian and Chinese Ships that are constantly surrounding them,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Last month, the president-elect also said that a lot of “Canadians want Canada to become the 51st State,” and questioned why the U.S. provides the country with subsidies.
“No one can answer why we subsidize Canada to the tune of over $100,000,000 a year? Makes no sense!” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.
The incoming commander-in-chief has trolled Trudeau in recent weeks, calling him the “governor” of Canada after their meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The prime minister’s resignation comes after the president-elect announced he would attach new tariffs onto Canadian goods imported into the U.S., a pledge Trump said he would take back if the two countries were to merge.
Trump also recently took aim at the Panama Canal and Greenland as places that could possibly be included as part of the U.S.
O’Leary, a Canadian himself, told Burman that he suggested to Trump that “‘the Canadians that have come down … Justin Trudeau, and then a few ministers, I would argue to you that you’re wasting your time with them.’”
The Hill has reached out to Trudeau’s office for comment.
NewsNation is owned by Nexstar Media Group, which also owns The Hill.
