Billionaire financier Kevin O'Leary claimed everyone needs to back off the hyperbole surrounding President Donald Trump's desire to impose tariffs on as many countries as possible, and likened the president's process to letting you "watch sausage being made."
O'Leary, a Canadian-born investor famous for his appearances on "Shark Tank," told CNN's Brianna Keilar Monday, "[Trump's] putting tariffs on the entire world — never been done." He added, "I don't think this is going to cause a recession. I don't see it in my own companies yet, and I think it's going to be short-lived."
O'Leary further assured Keilar that ultimately all of Trump's tariff policies will be tinkered, and various products and materials exempted before it causes any real harm to the economy.
"Rational minds always prevail because of one thing: economics," he said.
But Keilar pressed him, "Why are you making that assumption?"
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"I'm going to make that assumption because, here's why," O'Leary said. "Aluminum is made with the biggest input cost of electricity. We don't have enough electricity to build 15 smelters in the U.S., and even if we wanted to, it would take a decade. So, in the meantime, to get aluminum for all the goods and services that require that metal, we're going to have to buy it. Who's the number one supplier of aluminum to the United States? It's Canada. Why? Because they have the power. They have an abundance of electricity through hydro and nuclear power. They make it, we buy it. We turn it into beer cans or whatever you want it to be."
Trump previously expressed enthusiasm about putting tariffs on raw inputs even when it makes domestic production harder. His steel tariffs during his first term jeopardized thousands of jobs in manufacturing plants that require steel as an input.
O'Leary tried to insist that Trump and his Cabinet are "not stupid" and will "figure this out pretty quickly."
As O'Leary continued to say they'll pivot once Canada "figures out" who will run the country, Keilar interjected.
"But that's not my question," she interrupted. "That's not my question, Kevin."
"But that's the answer! The answer is these tariffs will go away!" he exclaimed.
Keilar returned, "But he's still taking it in the shorts. The guy with the microbrewery in North Carolina. The guy making minibikes. It's not like they get reimbursed. They're the ones bearing the cost while someone says that's not actually how it works even though that is how it works."
