China critic or charlatan? The hawkish economist driving Trump's trade war

The Hawkish Economist Driving Trump's Trade War

- Rory Carroll

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 disrupter, but Navarro's silky mien still assures America 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 (UCI), a respected, stolid institution in Orange County.