Daily Caller
Kevin O’Leary Says Trump’s Tariffs A Gateway To US-Canada Economic Unity
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Mariane Angela
‘It’s The Beginning Of A Giant Negotiation’
“Shark Tank” co-star Kevin O’Leary said Monday on Fox Business that President Donald Trump’s looming tariff on steel and aluminum imports have broader implications for US-Canada relations.
During an appearance on “The Evening Edit,” O’Leary discussed the impact of tariffs as the start of significant negotiations. He said there is potential for broader economic integration between the U.S. and Canada. Trump plans to impose tariffs of 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada, along with an additional 10% tariff on Canadian oil, natural gas, and electricity. Despite these significant figures, Trump has imposed only a 10% tariff on oil, the cheapest U.S. imports. O’Leary said this is merely the opening move in what could be a transformative economic negotiation.
“So all of this to me, if you separate the signal from the noise, forget the noise. The signal is, let’s get an economic union together,” O’Leary said. O’Leary said there is a global uproar over the U.S.’s proposed 25% tariffs and the reciprocal tariffs from countries like India, which have set their tariffs on some U.S. products at up to 23%.
“Those are two different baskets. Obviously, the one that people are talking about quite a bit tonight is India. They’ve got certain product services in different sectors, up to 23%. Now we’re going to have reciprocal tariffs in the U.S. against them. [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi will immediately fly to Washington. The negotiations will begin,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary, however, said Canada’s situation differs from others.
“It’s the same everywhere. The Canadian situation is unique. Almost the entire 200 million deficit that the president’s talking about comes from one single source. That’s energy coming out of Irving Refineries on the east coast down to Boston, and all of that oil, 4.3 million barrels a day coming in at Alberta into the west,” O’Leary said. “And so that’s the most inexpensive oil [that] the U.S. imports. That’s why he only put a 10% tariff on it. But it’s the beginning of a giant negotiation. Aluminum, 70% of aluminum comes in the U.S. It’s made in Canada for one singular reason.”
While some skeptics doubt Canada’s willingness to merge economies, a growing number of Canadians, O’Leary said, are open to exploring such a possibility.
“What is on the table that now 43% of Canadians want to explore more of? Forget all these tariffs. Let’s join the two economies, become a behemoth, common currency perhaps, and then take on China,” O’Leary added. “I mean, that’s really what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the security of the north, not the 49th parallel.”
When asked about what the U.S. could gain from such tariffs beyond economic leverage, O’Leary said it’s about the broader geopolitical benefits:
“Let me assure you that 11 out of 10 Canadians would rather trade their Trudeau pesos for American dollars. They already have American dollar accounts. Trudeau has wiped out 41% of their net worth the last nine years. They want an economic union because it’s good for business. Everybody understands that. The two countries are so intertwined, and they both believe in democracy and free speech and freedom and all the rest,” O’Leary said.
O’Leary was asked what can Trump get for the American consumer and the American voter in return for these tariffs.
“Security on energy,” O’Leary said.
“Alberta has five times more oil and gas than the entire United States. Complete security on uranium, aluminum, all of the incredible resources Canada has with only 41 million people there and access to it in a free flow. No tariffs.”
Trump aggressively employed tariffs to coerce Canada and Mexico into making concessions aimed at resolving the crisis at the southern border. In response, Canada has committed to bolstering security along its northern border, while Mexico has agreed to station 10,000 National Guard troops at the border.
During former President Joe Biden’s tenure, approximately 8.5 million migrants were encountered at the U.S.-Mexico border, and this period also saw an increase in fentanyl seizures, primarily driven by Chinese chemical companies. Meanwhile, even though less frequent, illegal crossings at the northern border also surged during the Biden administration.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Emily Kopp
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shipped thousands of viral samples to a lab in Wuhan over the course of a 10-year program even though it had no formal agreement with the lab in place, according to previously unreported documents.
The documents show that USAID funded the exportation of 11,000 samples from Yunnan Province, where some of the closest relatives of the COVID-19 virus circulate, to Wuhan, the epicenter of the pandemic, with no apparent plan for ensuring the samples were not misdirected to bioweapons and remained accessible to the U.S. government.
A $210 million USAID public health program called PREDICT, steered by the University of California-Davis, collected viral samples in countries throughout the globe but lacked long-term storage when funding dried up, according to rudimentary plans in 2019.
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USAID’s sample dispensation plan for China is sparse: “No need [sic] information from Yunnan. They were never an official lab partner for PREDICT. All samples they helped collected [sic] are sent to, tested, and stored in Wuhan.”
The “lab” refers to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). WIV was a close partner of USAID contractor EcoHealth Alliance and a slated partner for a PREDICT-like program supported by the State Department. The lab has poor biosafety practices and ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
One of the closest known relatives of the COVID virus is among the viruses sampled with USAID funding.
“Investigations involving USAID’s former funding of global health awards remain active and ongoing,” a senior State Department official said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The American people can rest assured knowing that under the Trump Administration we will not be funding these controversial programs.”
The internal documents were obtained through a FOIA lawsuit brought by U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit newsroom and public health research group.
The shuttering of USAID – which was officially completed Tuesday – has ignited a debate about its net impact on global health. A study in The Lancet projected an association between a dropoff in USAID funding and 14 million deaths based on an epidemiological model.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement Tuesday that USAID spending has often undermined rather than strengthened American interests.
“Beyond creating a globe-spanning NGO industrial complex at taxpayer expense, USAID has little to show since the end of the Cold War,” Rubio said. “Development objectives have rarely been met, instability has often worsened, and anti-American sentiment has only grown.”
The now-defunct agency’s connection to the Wuhan lab complicates its global health legacy.
“The USAID $210 million contract for PREDICT should have included contractual terms that required all samples, or at least copies of all samples, be transferred to and stored by a US government facility,” said Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright told the DCNF. “The PREDICT grift did none of this.”
UC Davis did not respond to a request for comment. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Today marks the first day of the State Department's America First foreign assistance rebranding initiative, led by @SecRubio.
Consistent branding will ensure contributions made by the the United States will be immediately recognized as American.
"The redesign is very simple,… pic.twitter.com/HZnbOxU0Sq
— Department of State (@StateDept) July 2, 2025
Did USAID Fund COVID’s Ancestor?
Many of the viruses stored at the lab in Wuhan may have been sampled with U.S. funding yet remain out of reach for U.S. government entities investigating the origins of COVID.
The samples were set to be preserved for testing – with human samples preserved for 10 years – the documents show. But the documents suggest that requirement was never incorporated into a formal contract with USAID.
The two scientists supervising the samples were: Ben Hu, a virologist at the WIV, who reportedly became sick with COVID-like symptoms in 2019; and Peter Daszak, a scientist who was debarred from federal funding after the U.S. government deemed him a threat to public safety for inadequate oversight of the research in Wuhan.
Hu and Daszak did not reply to requests for comment.
The documents show PREDICT contractors discussing viral samples taken from wildlife and stored in India, Liberia, Malaysia, the Republic of Congo and China. Some of the samples were stored in virus-transport media (VTM), which allows researchers to store live viruses for later use in the lab.
“It’s not rocket science to require a contract and supporting paperwork which establishes a relationship, testing protocol, and chain of custody, when one is sending out lab samples,” said Reuben Guttman, a partner at Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC who specializes in ensuring the integrity of government programs, in an interview with the DCNF. “In any scientific endeavor, you need confidence in your results. That requires paperwork to prove your methodology is sound.”
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Audrey Streb
President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the end of green energy subsidies by strengthening provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Monday night, citing national security concerns and unnecessary costs to taxpayers.
The order argues that a heavy reliance on green energy subsidies compromise the reliability of the power grid and undermines energy independence. Trump called for the U.S. to “rapidly eliminate” federal green energy subsidies and to “build upon and strengthen” the repeal of wind and solar tax credits remaining in the reconciliation law in the order, directing the Treasury Department to enforce the phase-out of tax credits.
“For too long, the Federal Government has forced American taxpayers to subsidize expensive and unreliable energy sources like wind and solar,” the order states. “Reliance on so-called ‘green’ subsidies threatens national security by making the United States dependent on supply chains controlled by foreign adversaries.”
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Former President Joe Biden established massive green energy subsidies under his signature 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which did not receive a single Republican vote.
The reconciliation package did not immediately terminate Biden-era federal subsidies for green energy technology, phasing them out over time instead, though some policy experts argued that drawn-out timelines could lead to an indefinite continuation of subsidies. Trump’s executive order alludes to potential loopholes in the bill, calling for a review by Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to ensure that green energy projects that have a “beginning of construction” tax credit deadline are not “circumvented.”
Additionally, the executive order directs the U.S. to end taxpayer support for green energy supply chains that are controlled by foreign adversaries, alluding to China’s supply chain dominance for solar and wind. Trump also specifically highlighted costs to taxpayers, market distortions and environmental impacts of subsidized green energy development in explaining the policy.
Ahead of the reconciliation bill becoming law, Trump told Republicans that “we’ve got all the cards, and we are going to use them.” Several House Republicans noted that the president said he would use executive authority to enhance the bill and strictly enforce phase-outs, which helped persuade some conservatives to back the bill.
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