A Fox News anchor confronted a guest about the plunge in the Dow Jones index after President Donald Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico will go into effect Tuesday.
On Monday’s edition of The Story, anchor Martha MacCallum quizzed her guest, Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, about the Dow plunging several hundred points immediately upon Trump’s announcement. (The market closed down 650 points for the day.)
“The market’s freaking out a little bit right now — a lot, I should say!” MacCallum said. “Down about 729 points right now. What’s your take on why that is, Kevin?”
Here’s how O’Leary responded:
“You know, you’ve got two forces at play here. We’re talking about [an] affordability czar because the price of eggs and housing and energy have are not showing any signs of declining at this point. And we’e even concerned until we see the Jobs act later this week or the jobs numbers, you know, what the economy looks like. And so there’s that uncertainty.
And then you’ve got tariffs could be coming on tomorrow and Mexico and Canada massive trading partners. And to a certain extent, over the long period of time, they would be inflationary, particularly on things like lumber for housing. And the lumber industry just yesterday and today said, ‘look, we can’t make up this capacity for at least four to five years.’ And so that would put a lot of pressure on housing prices.
MacCallum followed up by asking: “What does your gut tell you? Because obviously a lot of what we’re seeing — the Dow is at session lows right now, down 787 points. A lot of businesses across America are calibrating this. They buy things from all over the world in order to make their products. And they’re trying to figure out what the impact is going to be, short term.”
O’Leary expressed optimism that a deal with Canada would be worked out following that country’s upcoming elections.
“I’ve got a feeling the Canadian deal is going to get worked out probably in the next 90 days,” he said.
Watch above, via Fox News.