Peter Navarro | |
---|---|
![]() Navarro in 2018 | |
Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy | |
In office April 29, 2017 – January 20, 2021 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Director of the National Trade Council | |
In office January 20, 2017 – April 29, 2017 | |
President | Donald Trump |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Position abolished |
Personal details | |
Born | Peter Kent Navarro July 15, 1949 Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Political party | Republican (1989–1991, 2018–present) |
Other political affiliations | Democratic (before 1986, 1994–2018) Independent (1986–1989, 1991–1994) |
Spouse |
Leslie Lebon
(m. 2001; div. 2020) |
Education | Tufts University (BA) Harvard University (MPA, PhD) |
Peter Kent Navarro (born July 15, 1949) is an American economist who served in the Trump administration, first as Deputy Assistant to the President and director of the short-lived White House National Trade Council, then as Assistant to the President, Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in the new Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy; he was also named the national Defense Production Act policy coordinator.[1][2] He is a professor emeritus of economics and public policy at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine, and the author of Death by China, among other publications.[3] Navarro ran unsuccessfully for office in San Diego, California, five times.[4] Navarro, who sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election,[5] was the first former White House official ever imprisoned on a contempt-of-Congress conviction.[6]
Navarro's views on trade are significantly outside the mainstream of economic thought, and are widely considered fringe by other economists.[7][8][9][10][11] A strong proponent of reducing U.S. trade deficits, Navarro is well known as a critic of Germany and China, and has accused both nations of currency manipulation.[12] He has called for increasing the size of the American manufacturing sector, setting high tariffs, and "repatriating global supply chains."[13] He is also a vocal opponent of multilateral free trade agreements such as NAFTA[14] and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.[15]
As a Trump administration official, Navarro encouraged President Donald Trump to implement trade-protectionist policies.[16][17][18][19] Navarro said his role in the administration is to "provide the underlying analytics that confirm [Trump's] intuition [on trade]. And his intuition is always right in these matters."[9] In 2018, as the Trump administration was implementing such policies, Navarro argued that no country would retaliate against U.S. tariffs "for the simple reason that we are the most lucrative and biggest market in the world". Shortly after the implementation of the tariffs, other countries did implement retaliatory tariffs against the United States, leading to trade wars.[20][21]
During his final year in the Trump administration, Navarro was involved in the administration's COVID-19 response.[22] Early on, he issued private warnings within the administration about the threat posed by the virus, but downplayed the risks in public.[23] He publicly clashed with Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as Navarro advocated hydroxychloroquine as a treatment of COVID-19 and condemned various public health measures to stop the spread of the virus.[24][25]
After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Donald Trump refused to concede, Navarro advanced conspiracy theories of election fraud and in February 2022 was subpoenaed twice by Congress. One subpoena required him to produce documents to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack; the other subpoena required him to give testimony to the committee.[26] Navarro refused to comply, effectively ignoring both subpoenas, and was referred to the Justice Department. On June 2, 2022, a grand jury indicted him on two counts of contempt of Congress.[27]
On September 7, 2023, he was convicted on both counts,[28] and on January 25, 2024, he was sentenced to four months in jail and fined $9,500.[29] He served his sentence at the minimum-security camp inside of the Miami Federal Correctional Institute where federal prison consultant Sam Mangel secured housing in a special dorm for elderly inmates.[27] Navarro was released on July 17, 2024.[30] Within hours of being released from prison, Navarro gave a prime time speech endorsing Donald Trump for a second term at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Mr Navarro's views on trade are well outside the mainstream, and he is not a big hitter in academic circles.
Navarro has come a long way from his roots as a mainstream economist.
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