The Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary has said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Chinese products are “not enough.”
Businessman and investor Kevin O’Leary said he wants to go DEFCON 1 on China and implement 400 percent tariffs in the wake of Donald Trump’s trade announcements.
O’Leary made the comments during a CNN panel discussing the President-elect’s revelation that he intends to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese products entering the U.S. and a 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico.
“I would like to go to DEFCON 1 with China, tariffs 400 percent, I brought it up”, O’Leary said on a Newsnight episode on Tuesday. He used the shortened U.S. military term for “Defense Readiness Condition 1”, which is the most severe alert level.
“Bring the supreme leader to Washington or crush his economy until he has riots in the street”, he said.
When asked if 35 percent is “enough for China”, O’Leary said: “No it’s not enough—what you have to do is target parts of their economy with a lot of workers.”
He added: “Just for an example, let’s say yoga mats—let’s say we import a million yoga mats a month. All the yoga mat factories, 400 percent tariffs on yoga mats, they all get unemployed, they go to the streets, they scream at the supreme leader, ‘I’m starving’, riots.
