Navarro is the "tariff" man.
Peter Navarro: the economist who has outsmarted Elon Musk and has the ear of Donald Trump
US president’s chief trade adviser is intellectual driving force behind global tariffs and trade war with China
Mon 21 Apr 2025 04.00 EDT
Elon Musk called him “dumber than a sack of bricks” but, in the raw contest for political power, Peter Navarro has outsmarted the billionaire. The tumult in global trade shows that for now it is the 75-year-old economist, not Musk, who has Donald Trump’s ear in the Oval Office. Navarro is the US president’s chief trade adviser and the intellectual driving force behind the global tariffs and trade war with China. The chaos and uncertainty have been too strong even for Musk, the great disrupter, but Navarro’s silky mien still assures the US all is well.
Even after the tech tycoon publicly compared him to a sack of bricks, and added that he was “truly a moron”, Navarro retained his composure. “I’ve been called worse,” he told NBC. That is true. Navarro has been called a charlatan and a criminal who risks driving the world economy off a cliff. It is a remarkable metamorphosis for a man who a decade ago was a little-known academic nearing retirement at the University of California, Irvine, a respected, stolid institution in Orange County.
Then the professor’s hawkish views on China caught the eye of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and vaulted him to Washington, where he played key roles in economic policy, the Covid pandemic and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a vortex that landed him in jail – for contempt of Congress – only for him to re-emerge, more influential than ever, in Trump’s second administration.
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Now back in the White House as Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing, Navarro’s influence has been felt in tariffs, stock market volatility and grim economic warnings despite a pause in the most severe tariffs for 90 days.
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