At Harvard, Peter Navarro defends Trump on trade
President Trump’s trade czar, Peter Navarro, said Thursday night during a speech at the Institute of Politics’ JFK Jr. Forum that the administration’s efforts to remake American trade policies, pressure China to reform its practices, and revamp the tariff system are boosting the American economy. Navarro ’77, Ph.D. ’86, has been informing Trump’s ideas on trade since the 2016 presidential campaign, ever since Jared Kushner shared one of Navarro’s books, “Death by China,” with his father-in-law, who had been espousing similarly critical views of trade with that nation since the 1980s. Now assistant to the president and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, Navarro, besides being a prolific author, is a former Democrat who has run for office several times, and is a professor emeritus of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine. Trump has begun enacting several of Navarro’s policy proposals, and Navarro said they’re having the...