Kevin O’Leary wants to discuss US-Canada economic union with Trump

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Canadian business mogul Kevin O’Leary says he wants to meet with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, the president-elect’s so-called “winter White House,” to discuss the idea of “an economic union” with the United States.

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After Trump claimed on social media that Canadians could pay 60 per cent less in taxes by joining the U.S., O’Leary told Fox Business on Thursday that he wants to pitch the U.S. president-elect on a more limited integration of the two nations.

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“There’s 41 million Canadians — basically the population of California, sitting on the world’s largest amounts of all resources — including the most important, energy and water. Canadians, over the holidays the last two days, have been talking about this. They want to hear more,” said the Montreal-born entrepreneur and reality television personality, who is a vocal Trump supporter.

“There’s obviously a lot of issues and more details, but what this could be is the beginning of an economic union. Think about the power of combining the two economies, erasing the border between Canada and the United States and putting all that resource up to the northern borders where China and Russia are knocking on the door.”

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O’Leary already lives in the U.S. The Shark Tank investor currently resides in Florida but lived for decades in Boston, Mass. He recently said he left the state due to high taxes.

The idea of deeper integration between Canada and the U.S., and sometimes Mexico, has been a source of discussion for decades, often compared to a North American equivalent to the European Union, with a shared currency and identification papers. O’Leary pitched similar ideas for an “economic union” during his Fox Business appearance.

“Give a common currency, figure out taxes across the board, get everything trading both ways, create a new, almost EU-like passport. I like this idea, and at least half of Canadians are interested. The problem is the government’s collapsing in Canada right now,” O’Leary noted, referring to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s embattled government, his cabinet reshuffle and a potential federal election. “Nobody wants Trudeau to negotiate this deal — I don’t want him doing it for me — so I’m going to go to Mar-a-Lago. I’ll start the narrative. The 41 million Canadians, I think most of them would trust me on this deal.”

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Such negotiations have historically stalled because of the initiative’s complexity, according to a report from the nonpartisan research group the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“The sad truth of North America is that very few leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States have ever entertained serious discussion of North American goals or plans,” the report says.

“The three governments are not organized to approach North American issues, and officials in each government prefer to deal with problems by themselves or bilaterally…. An even more important reason why these ideas have not been discussed is the complex set of fears and prejudices that lurk deep in the souls of the three countries.”

O’Leary’s comments come on the heels of repeated statements from Trump encouraging Canada to become “our 51st state” and belittling Trudeau as “the Governor of Canada.” He first floated the idea during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Trudeau and members of his cabinet. Trump has threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff against Canada upon taking office in January and on Nov. 29, he joked to Trudeau that if Canada wants to avoid tariffs, it could always become the 51st state.

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A month later, Trump’s still repeating the same joke. 

Canada’s “taxes would be cut by more than 60%, their businesses would immediately double in size, and they would be militarily protected like no other Country anywhere in the World,” Trump wrote in a Christmas Day post on Truth Social, a media platform founded by the president-elect.

Trudeau appeared to break his silence on Trump’s trolling for the first time on Thursday in a terse message on X.

“Some information about Canada for Americans,” Trudeau wrote above a video narrated by Tom Brokaw about the broad brushstrokes of Canadian politics, landscapes and history which aired ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

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