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Shark Tank judge Kevin O'Leary posted a clip from an interview on his official Instagram account on April 24. In the clip, he addressed the current state of small businesses in America after Trump levied tariffs, and how China's role in it affected the scenario.
He said that these businesses hadn't felt the complete impact of the changes yet because their manufacturing also lay in other countries such as India, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
"We haven't felt the full impact of that yet," he said.
Kevin O'Leary rose to fame through Shark Tank because the show displayed his extensive knowledge and expertise in fields such as finance, business, and politics. His opinions and comments on the ongoing changes were sought after because he simplified complex political practices for common people and explained how they were beneficial or disadvantageous at the grassroots level.
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In the said interview, Kevin explained how small businesses hadn't truly felt the impact of tariffs on China because they were fueled by other resources.
What Shark Tank judge Kevin O'Leary had to say about the current state of small businesses in America
The interviewer asked Kevin about what he was hearing from small business owners about inflation, tariffs, and any other supply chain challenges that they could be facing following the recent changes from the current administration.
Kevin stated that the issues with the negotiations with China had not yet been felt by small businesses.
"Obviously, they(small businesses) have concerns as they listen to the narrative and the noise versus the signal of what's really going on with China," he added.
He said that there were also ongoing tariff discussions in other markets, including India, Vietnam, and Cambodia. He said many small businesses, including some of them in his portfolio, used those countries for manufacturing their products instead of China.
Giving an example of this, the Shark Tank investor mentioned Love Pop greeting cards. He explained that they designed those cards in Boston in America, and digitally sent them to where they were produced in Vietnam. The laser farms in Vietnam would manufacture those greeting cards and then ship it over to the US.
Kevin added that it was a successful model, and they were concerned they would get those tariffs to zero when it came to Vietnam, and that seemed to be moving in the right direction. He said that because of this reason, they hadn't felt the full impact of the tariffs on China yet, but that didn't mean they weren't concerned.
"Obviously, they were concerned that we get these tariffs to zero with Vietnam, and that seems to be moving in the right direction," he explained.
The Shark Tank judge further stated that China was a different story and that there were two issues that small businesses were worried about with respect to China. The first one was the acceptance that they did manufacture there, but they also needed to see that they had unresolved issues with China for over 20 years.
Giving an example of the unfair trading practices, Kevin stated that a successful business company in the US, which was nascent, got a product to incur five million dollars in sales in the domestic market of the US. He said that within weeks, Chinese companies created dupes of the product and sold it at a 30-40% discount.
The Shark Tank judge said that sometimes these factories used the same molds as the original product. He added that at night, they make the factories produce these knockoffs, and there was no way to resolve those disputes. These hadn't been resolved by the World Trade Organization either, in over 20 years.
He said that there was no way to litigate in the Chinese courts, but the Chinese could use the US law to litigate the trading issues they had, which he thought was unbalanced. He said that a reciprocal deal with China would be the only way to resolve this issue, and that would be two issues, not just with the small businesses.
For more updates on Shark Tank judge Kevin O'Leary, fans can follow him on his Instagram, @kevinolearytv.
