Peter Navarro

Not to be confused with Peter Navarre or Pedro Navarro.

Peter Navarro
Navarro smiling, seated in front of an American flag
Navarro in 2018
Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy
In office
April 29, 2017 – January 20, 2021
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Director of the National Trade Council
In office
January 20, 2017 – April 29, 2017
PresidentDonald Trump
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byPosition abolished
Personal details
Born
Peter Kent Navarro

(1949-07-15) July 15, 1949 (age 75)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political partyRepublican (1989–1991, 2018–present)
Other political
affiliations		Democratic (before 1986, 1994–2018)
Independent (1986–1989, 1991–1994)
Spouse
Leslie Lebon
​
​
(m. 2001; div. 2020)​
EducationTufts 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 were considered outside the mainstream of economic thought.[7][8] 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.[9] He called for increasing the size of the American manufacturing sector, imposing high tariffs, and "repatriating global supply chains."[10], which the succeeding Biden administration kept in place[11] or implemented even more extensively.[12] In May 2024, the Biden administration raised tariffs on Chinese imports, doubling for solar cells and sharply increasing for steel, aluminum, and medical equipment.[13][14] Navarro is also a vocal opponent of multilateral free trade agreements such as NAFTA[15]

As a Trump administration official, Navarro encouraged President Donald Trump to implement trade-protectionist policies.[16][17] 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."[7] 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.[18][19]

During his final year in the Trump administration, Navarro was involved in the administration's COVID-19 response.[20] Early on, he issued private warnings within the administration about the threat posed by the virus, but downplayed the risks in public.[21] 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.[22][23]

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.[24] 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.[25]

On September 7, 2023, he was convicted on both counts,[26] and on January 25, 2024, he was sentenced to four months in jail and fined $9,500.[27] He served his sentence at the minimum-security camp inside of the Miami Federal Correctional Institute in a section for elderly inmates.[25] Navarro was released on July 17, 2024.[28] 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.[29]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference joshwapo was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  3. ^ Appelbaum, Binyamin (December 21, 2016). "Trump Taps Peter Navarro, Vocal Critic of China, for New Trade Post". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on March 1, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference trail was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Pagliery, Jose (December 28, 2021). "Trump Adviser Lays Out How He and Bannon Planned to Overturn Biden's Electoral Win". The Daily Beast. Retrieved March 20, 2024.
  6. ^ Sneed, Tierney (March 19, 2024). "TEx-Trump aide Peter Navarro begins serving prison sentence after historic contempt prosecution". CNN. Retrieved March 20, 2024.
  7. ^ a b Coy, Peter (March 8, 2018). "After Defeating Cohn, Trump's Trade Warrior Is on the Rise Again". Bloomberg. Archived from the original on March 27, 2019. Navarro has come a long way from his roots as a mainstream economist.
  8. ^ Chance, David; Rampton, Roberta (March 8, 2018). "'Death by China' economist ascendant as Trump pushes tariffs, hits China". Reuters. Retrieved January 16, 2021.
  9. ^ Lowrey, Annie (December 2018). "The 'Madman' Behind Trump's Trade Theory". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on April 25, 2019. Retrieved November 18, 2018.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference :7 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ Davis, Bob; Hayashi, Yuka (March 28, 2021). "New Trade Representative Says U.S. Isn't Ready to Lift China Tariffs". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on March 28, 2021. Retrieved March 29, 2021.
  12. ^ Swanson, Ana (January 26, 2021). "Biden's Commerce Pick Vows to Combat China and Climate Change". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 26, 2021. Retrieved January 26, 2021.
  13. ^ Su, Annie (May 15, 2024). "US to impose 25% import tariffs on Chinese rare earth magnets in 2026". Fastmarkets. Retrieved June 20, 2024.
  14. ^ Boak, Josh; Hussein, Fatima; Wiseman, Paul; Tang, Didi (May 14, 2024). "Biden hikes tariffs on Chinese EVs, solar cells, steel, aluminum — and snipes at Trump". AP News. Archived from the original on May 16, 2024. Retrieved May 16, 2024.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference :17 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ "Views of Trump's trade adviser carry the day at White House". AP NEWS. April 26, 2021. Retrieved May 22, 2021.
  17. ^ Leary, Alex (December 21, 2019). "In the Battles Over Trump's Trade Wars, Hawkish Adviser Navarro Endures". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved May 22, 2021.
  18. ^ Mitchener, Kris; O'Rourke, Kevin; Wandschneider, Kirsten (May 19, 2021). "The ghost of Smoot-Hawley tells why America isn't too big to avoid retaliation". VoxEU.org. Retrieved May 22, 2021.
  19. ^ "Trump's China tariffs violate global trade rules, WTO says". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved May 22, 2021.
  20. ^ McSwane, J. David (March 31, 2021). "Documents Show Trump Officials Skirted Rules to Reward Politically Connected and Untested Firms With Huge Pandemic Contracts". ProPublica. Retrieved December 12, 2023.
  21. ^ Cite error: The named reference :27 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference :28 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  24. ^ Cite error: The named reference :30 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  25. ^ a b Perez, Evan; Reid, Paula; Sneed, Tierney (June 3, 2022). "Grand jury indicts former Trump adviser Peter Navarro for two misdemeanor counts of contempt of Congress". CNN. Cite error: The named reference "auto" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  26. ^ Cite error: The named reference NYTConvicted was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  27. ^ Cole, Devan; Lybrand, Holmes (January 25, 2024). "Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro sentenced to 4 months in jail for defying congressional subpoena". CNN. Retrieved January 25, 2024.
  28. ^ "Inmate Locator". Federal Bureau of Prisons.
  29. ^ Golgowski, Nina (July 17, 2024). "Ex-Trump Adviser Peter Navarro Released From Prison, Set To Speak At RNC". HuffPost. Retrieved July 17, 2024.