107 Facts About Peter Navarro

Peter Kent Navarro was born on July 15,1949 and is an American economist who has been the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing to US president Donald Trump since January 2025.

Peter Navarro previously served in the first Trump administration, first as the director of the White House National Trade Council, then as the director of the new Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

Peter Navarro ran unsuccessfully for office in San Diego, California, five times.

Peter Navarro was named the national Defense Production Act policy coordinator in 2020.

Peter Navarro 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 that aimed to stop the spread of the virus.

Peter Navarro sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election and in February 2022 was subpoenaed twice by Congress.

Peter Navarro refused to comply and was referred to the Justice Department.

In 2023, Peter Navarro was convicted on both counts, and in 2024, he was sentenced to four months in jail, becoming the first former White House official imprisoned on a contempt-of-Congress conviction.

Peter Navarro has accused China of unfair trade practices and currency manipulation and called for more confrontational policies towards the country.

Peter Navarro has called for increasing the size of the American manufacturing sector, setting high tariffs, and "repatriating global supply chains".

Peter Navarro is a vocal opponent of free trade agreements.

Peter Navarro has written books including The Coming China Wars and Death by China.

In several of his books, Peter Navarro quoted a fictional economist named "Ron Vara", an anagram of his name, as a source of information.

Peter Navarro was born on July 15,1949, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Peter Navarro attended Tufts University on an academic scholarship, graduating in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Peter Navarro then spent three years from 1973 to 1976 in the US Peace Corps, serving in Thailand, traveling to Laos, South Korea, Japan, India, Myanmar and Malaysia during his holiday breaks.

Peter Navarro received a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University's John F Kennedy School of Government in 1979, and a PhD in economics from Harvard under the supervision of Richard E Caves in 1986.

Peter Navarro continued on the UC Irvine faculty for more than 20 years and is a professor emeritus.

Peter Navarro has worked on energy issues and the relationship between the United States and Asia.

Peter Navarro has received multiple teaching awards for MBA courses he has taught.

Peter Navarro has done research on the topic of wind energy with Frank Harris, a former student of his.

Peter Navarro paid $4,000 in fines and court costs for violating city and state election laws.

In 1993, Peter Navarro ran for San Diego city council, and in 1994 for San Diego County board of supervisors, losing each time.

Peter Navarro has written more than a dozen books on various topics in economics, specializing in the balance of trade.

Peter Navarro has published peer-reviewed economics research on energy policy, charity, deregulation, and the economics of trash collection.

Peter Navarro has said that he started to examine China when he noticed that his former students at UC Irvine were losing jobs, concluding that China was at fault and said that "all roads began leading to Beijing".

Peter Navarro discussed how China's role in international commerce created conflicts with nations worldwide over energy, natural resources, the environment, intellectual property, and other issues.

Peter Navarro accuses China of keeping its currency cheap" and "Peter Navarro deplores China's practice of forcing American firms to hand over intellectual property as a condition of access to its market.

Peter Navarro received a letter as a reply by Trump assistant Rhona Graff, with the letter containing Trump's handwritten notes.

Peter Navarro continued to exchange notes with Trump through Graff afterwards.

In 2016, Peter Navarro served as an economic policy adviser to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

Peter Navarro was invited to be an advisor after Trump's advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner saw on Amazon that he co-wrote Death by China.

Miller was the primary advocate for having Peter Navarro join the campaign full time.

Peter Navarro was given an office on the 14th floor of Trump Tower, where he worked on economic plans that heavily focused on starting a trade war against China.

When told that the Tax Policy Center assessment of Trump's economic plan said it would reduce federal revenues by $6 trillion and reduce economic growth in the long term, Peter Navarro said that the analysis demonstrated "a high degree of analytical and political malfeasance".

On December 21,2016, Peter Navarro was selected by President-elect Trump to a newly created position as director of the White House National Trade Council.

At the first three weeks of his administration, Peter Navarro was not assigned an office on the White House campus and instead had to work out of his house.

The New York Times wrote in 2019 that Peter Navarro "has managed to exert enormous influence over United States trade policy" in the Trump administration.

Josh Rogin, writing for The Washington Post, reported that Peter Navarro had used his prior time of lower influence to lead several low-profile policy items, such as working to increase military funding, drafting Executive Order 13806, and leading the effort to solve a dispute between the United States and Qatar over the Open Skies Agreement between the two countries.

In June 2018, Peter Navarro said that there was "a special place in hell" for Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, after Trudeau said that Canada would respond to US tariffs against Canada with retaliatory tariffs.

Trudeau's remarks and Canada's response to these tariffs were already public and well known when Peter Navarro made this comment.

In 2018, Peter Navarro supported the United States Fair and Reciprocal Tariff Act, which would have given the President sweeping powers over trade policy.

Peter Navarro lobbied heavily in the United States Congress for the bill and its successor called the United States Reciprocal Trade Act, though the act ultimately did not pass.

In May 2019, Peter Navarro said that Trump's decision to place tariffs on Mexico unless Mexico stopped illegal immigration to the United States was "a brilliant move".

In February 2020, it was reported that Peter Navarro was conducting his own investigation into the identity of the author of an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times criticizing the Trump Administration.

The United States Office of Special Counsel ruled in December 2020 that Peter Navarro repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by using his official capacity to influence elections in speaking against Trump's opponent Joe Biden during the presidential campaign.

Peter Navarro described himself as a "one-man China hawk totally without power or allies in a White House filled with a symphony of Wall Street transactionalists and China dove appeasers".

In October 2018, Peter Navarro supported a proposal by Stephen Miller to stop providing student visas to Chinese nationals, making it impossible for Chinese citizens to study in the United States.

Peter Navarro continued to advocate for trade restrictionist policies even while the administration was trying to reach a compromise in trade negotiations with China.

Peter Navarro worked with the DHS to initiate a crackdown on counterfeited and pirated e-commerce goods from overseas, and he promoted the administration's actions on the matter.

Mnuchin began arguing that TikTok should be sold to a US company, while Peter Navarro demanded an outright ban on the app.

On January 29,2020, Peter Navarro issued a memo warning that novel coronavirus could "evolv[e] into a full-blown pandemic, imperiling the lives of millions of Americans" and that the "risk of a worst-case pandemic scenario should not be overlooked".

On March 27,2020, Trump appointed Peter Navarro to coordinate the federal government's Defense Production Act policy response during the coronavirus pandemic.

Peter Navarro clashed with Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, over whether the administration should promote the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus.

In July 2020, Peter Navarro touted a widely criticized study as showing that hydroxychloroquine was an effective coronavirus treatment; public health experts pointed to limitations with the study and to the fact that multiple randomized controlled trials failed to conclude that hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment.

In May 2020, Peter Navarro criticized stay-at-home orders, arguing that the COVID-19 lockdowns would kill "many more" people than the coronavirus.

The Washington Post reported in March 2021 that congressional investigators were examining whether Peter Navarro had directed over $1 billion in federal funds for medical supplies to companies of his selection, after President Trump had rejected his recommendations.

In December 2020, Peter Navarro published a report alleging widespread election fraud.

Days later, Peter Navarro reiterated false claims that Trump had won the election.

Later in 2021, Peter Navarro published In Trump Time, a book in which he describes how he, Bannon, and others worked to delay or overturn Congress's counting of the election votes formalizing Biden's victory, in part through a failed scheme to try to get Pence to "reject" electoral votes for Biden, something Pence had no power to do.

In December 2021, Peter Navarro was still claiming that his falsehoods were meant "to lay the legal predicate for the actions to be taken", despite no evidence of voting fraud being found.

On February 9,2022, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack subpoenaed Peter Navarro to provide documents and testimony.

Peter Navarro refused to do so and ignored both subpoenas.

Peter Navarro made media appearances to defend this behavior in the press.

Ultimately, Peter Navarro ignored all requirements of both subpoenas without effectively asserting any legally cognizable privilege or exemption.

In May 2022, Peter Navarro said he had been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury and ordered to surrender any documents he had related to the January 6,2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Peter Navarro unsuccessfully sought to block both the House committee's subpoena and the grand jury subpoena.

Peter Navarro was arrested by deputy US marshals at Reagan National Airport as he was about to board a plane to Nashville.

Peter Navarro claimed that Trump had privately asked him to invoke "executive privilege" over the documents sought by the congressional subpoena.

Three former congressional committee staffers testified as prosecution witnesses; Peter Navarro declined to testify in his own defense or to offer any witnesses for the defense.

Peter Navarro told reporters that he expected to face legal bills of $750,000.

Peter Navarro later said that Trump helped pay $300,000 and while he raised more in an appeal on a website.

Peter Navarro was the second ex-Trump aide to be convicted of contempt of Congress; Bannon had been convicted of the same offense the preceding year.

On September 7,2023, Peter Navarro was convicted on both counts and on January 25,2024, he was sentenced to four months in jail and fined $9,500, becoming the first former White House official ever imprisoned on contempt of Congress conviction.

Peter Navarro was ordered to report to a minimum-security federal prison in Miami, Florida by March 19,2024.

Peter Navarro stated that he is not seeking a pardon from President Trump.

Peter Navarro acknowledged that he had kept between 200 and 250 records that belonged to the government but claimed that there were no legal means to require him to return the records to the National Archives and that producing the emails would infringe his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

Peter Navarro appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

On December 4,2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced Peter Navarro would be the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing in his second term.

Peter Navarro is one of the few officials from Trump's first term to return for his second term.

Peter Navarro successfully pushed the Trump administration to close the de minimis duty exemption for China, which allowed Chinese products worth less than $800 to be imported duty free.

The Financial Times reported in February 2025 that Peter Navarro proposed expelling Canada from the Five Eyes.

Peter Navarro was a key official behind Trump's "reciprocal tariff" policy announced in April; ING Group noted that plans for the policy appeared to align with Peter Navarro's section of Project 2025, titled "The Case for Fair Trade", published in April 2023.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that Peter Navarro played a central role in developing the administration's "reciprocal" tariff formula.

Peter Navarro predicted the tariffs would raise $6 trillion, a figure disputed by the The Washington Post's Fact Checker.

Peter Navarro has been a staunch critic of relations and trade with China and a strong proponent of reducing US trade deficits.

Peter Navarro has attacked Germany, Japan, and China for their currency manipulation.

Peter Navarro was a fierce opponent of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Peter Navarro changed his positions as he saw "the globalist erosion of the American economy" develop.

Peter Navarro doesn't do research that would meet the scientific standards of that community.

In 2023, Peter Navarro co-authored the chapter on trade for the ninth edition of the Heritage Foundation's book Mandate for Leadership, which provides the policy agenda for Project 2025.

The chapter, called "the case for fair trade" is part of a dueling chapter on trade policy in which Peter Navarro argues for tariffs and trade restrictions while other authors argue for free trade.

Peter Navarro's view is that the tariff adjustments will spur the economy in the long run and yield enough revenue to pay for tax cuts.

Peter Navarro rejoined the Democratic Party in 1994 and remained a Democrat during each of his subsequent political campaigns.

Peter Navarro supported President Barack Obama's phase-out of incandescent light bulbs, the adoption of wind power, and carbon taxes in order to stop global warming.

Peter Navarro has said that a large part of China's competitive advantage over the United States stems from unfair trade practices.

Peter Navarro has criticized China for pollution, poor labor standards, government subsidies, producing "contaminated, defective and cancerous" exports, currency manipulation, and theft of US intellectual property.

Peter Navarro has admitted to making up the character, an author surrogate, and quoting him in his books.

Economist Glenn Hubbard, who co-authored Seeds of Destruction with Peter Navarro, has said he was not aware that Vara was fictional, and that he disapproved of Peter Navarro attributing information to a fictional source.

Peter Navarro drew controversy when he accused Germany of using a "grossly undervalued" euro to "exploit" the rest of the European Union and the United States.

Peter Navarro called for the United States to leave the North American Free Trade Agreement, and tried to convince Trump to initiate a withdrawal.

Irwin said that Peter Navarro had not substantiated his claim with any evidence.

Peter Navarro has said that the United States has "already begun to lose control of [its] food supply chain", which according to NPR, "sounded pretty off-the-wall to a number of economists" who noted that the United States is a massive exporter of food.

Peter Navarro is a proponent of the notion that trade deficits are bad in and of themselves, a view which is widely rejected by trade experts and economists.

Peter Navarro thinks that for every dollar we import, our GDP is reduced by a dollar.

The couple lived in Laguna Beach, with Lebon's son from a previous marriage, while Peter Navarro was a professor at UC Irvine.

At the Republican National Convention in July 2024, Peter Navarro announced that he was engaged to a woman named Bonnie.