Kevin O'Leary says the fear of China's rise will drive the North American powers to work together

Kevin O'Leary, a Canadian venture capitalist and 'Shark Tank' investor, said fear of China's rise in AI, technology, warfare, and power generation will drive the US, Canada, and Mexico to collaborate economically. In a video posted on X and Instagram, O'Leary argued that economic reality will outweigh political disagreements, citing Canada's energy and critical minerals, US scale and innovation, and Mexico's role in the North American economy. His comments come amid US President Donald Trump's 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods and O'Leary's own push for data center development.

Kevin O'Leary https://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-oleary-data-centers-2026-6 says a fear of China's rise will be one of the biggest forces that will unite the US, Canada, and Mexico. In an interview clip he posted on his X and Instagram, the Canadian venture capitalist and "Shark Tank" investor said there is only one thing that would drive economic integration in North America: the fear of China. He said in the Sunday video that the fear that China would beat the US in AI, technology, warfare, and power generation would drive the US, Canada, and Mexico to collaborate. "As the race for AI, energy, and critical infrastructure accelerates, economic reality will outweigh political disagreements because the United States, Canada, and Mexico are stronger when they work together," O'Leary said in the caption of the X post. "Canada has the energy and critical minerals, the United States has the scale and innovation, and Mexico plays a vital role in the North American economy," he added in the video. "In the long run, cooperation is not just good policy, it's an economic necessity." O'Leary is far from the only business big name to talk about the competition that the US faces from China. In a recent interview with The Economist, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that China already produces far more electricity than the US and that, if it had enough computing power, it could become the world's AI leader. OpenAI and Anthropic, the two leading American AI labs, have both warned about Chinese AI labs https://www.businessinsider.com/anthropic-ai-us-gain-lead-china-2026-5 closing the gap between their LLM capabilities. Moonshot AI's latest Kimi K3 model https://www.businessinsider.com/kimi-k3-ai-model-moonshot-china-open-weights-benchmarks-pricing-2026-7 was lauded for performing tasks with frontier capabilities. And automobile executives, including Ford CEO Jim Farley https://www.businessinsider.com/ford-ceo-china-completely-dominating-tesla-gm-ford-ev-2025-9 , Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, have repeatedly spoken about Chinese automakers' prowess in building electric vehicles. Meanwhile, North America is more fragmented than ever, with President Donald Trump imposing another round of tariffs — this time 50% — on some goods from Canada in July. O'Leary's comments come amid his intense push for more data centers https://www.businessinsider.com/kevin-oleary-likens-ai-data-centers-water-use-golf-courses-2026-7 . His VC firm, O'Leary Ventures, is developing massive data centers in Utah and Canada despite local backlash.