The driving force behind Trump's extreme tariff policy: Navarro, an "unconventional" economist

The global financial market is being swept by a sudden cold wave.

After Trump announced his extreme policy of imposing "reciprocal tariffs" on almost all trading partners, panic in the global capital market reached its peak:

As of 10 p.m. Eastern Time on April 7, the S&P 500 futures fell 5.98% and the Nasdaq 100 futures fell 6.2%. Dow Jones futures fell 5.5%.

The Asian market was even more risk-averse, with the Nikkei index falling 8.9% in early trading. The Taiwan Weighted Index plunged nearly 10% after a two-day holiday, and major stocks such as TSMC and Foxconn were circuit-breakers.

The crypto market was not immune.

Investors watched their assets shrink, and the red line on the crypto trading screen was like an alarm, foreshadowing a greater turmoil.

According to CoinGlass, the liquidation of cryptocurrencies has soared to about $892 million, including more than $300 million in long and short positions in Bitcoin.

BTC has fallen to around $77,000, while ETH has even reached $1,500.

The horn of the trade war has sounded again, and at the forefront is Peter Navarro, Trump's senior trade adviser.

On April 6, Navarro appeared in an interview with Fox News.

He tried to calm investors' emotions and played a ridiculous language art in the face of the interview:

"The first principle, especially for small investors, is that unless you sell your stocks now, you will not lose money. The wise strategy is not to panic and hold on."

Floating losses are not losses, and not selling means no losses.

It is hard to imagine that this kind of ineffective comfort, which is close to the style of spiritual victory, came from a senior presidential trade adviser and university economics professor.

This statement obviously failed to calm the market's anxiety, but instead made people focus on him - this Harvard doctor, who is nicknamed "non-mainstream economist" by the outside world, seems to be not only a spokesperson for policy, but also an indispensable driving force behind extreme trade protectionism.

Even Musk, who has a good relationship with President Trump, publicly expressed his criticism and irony of the presidential adviser on social media a few days ago, saying bluntly that "getting a doctorate in economics from Harvard is not a good thing, and it may lead to wrong decisions due to excessive arrogance"; and questioned whether Navarro had never created any substantial results himself.

Who is this economist standing behind Trump? How did he promote this tariff policy storm that swept the world?

From the edge of academia to the core of decision-making in the White House, Navarro's life intersects with Trump's protectionist ideas, and perhaps together they have caused this crisis.

From academia to a marginal figure in politics

Peter Navarro's story began on July 15, 1959, in an ordinary family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

His father, Albert "Al" Navarro, was a saxophone and clarinetist, and his mother, Evelyn Littlejohn, was a secretary at Sax Fifth Avenue.

However, this family time was short-lived and turbulent, as his parents divorced when he was 9 or 10, leaving Navarro and his mother to move between Palm Beach, Florida, and Bethesda, Maryland.

Growing up in a single-parent family may have planted a desire for stability and independence in his heart, which eventually sprouted quietly when he finished his studies at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland.

In 1972, Navarro entered Tufts University with an academic scholarship and received a bachelor's degree. In the same year, he joined the United States Peace Corps and served in Thailand for three years. This experience gave him his first exposure to the complexity of the international community and may have laid the groundwork for his later concern about global trade imbalances.

In 1979, he received a master's degree in public administration from Harvard University, and then won a doctorate in 1986 under the guidance of economics master Richard E. Caves. With the degree in hand, he chose to stay in academia and served as a professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine since 1989, and worked for decades until he became an honorary professor.

However, Navarro was not content with being a bookworm. He had entered politics five times and tried to put his ideas into practice.

In 1992, he ran for mayor of San Diego, leading with 38.2% of the votes in the primary, but lost in the runoff with 48%;

After that, he ran for seats in the city council, the county board of supervisors and Congress, but all failed - 41.9% of the votes in the 1996 congressional election and only 7.85% in the 2001 city council special election. These failures did not make him retreat, but instead highlighted his persistence and marginalized characteristics.

During his campaign, he repeatedly emphasized economic protectionism and employment priority, which echoed Trump's "America First" in the future, but failed to win the favor of voters at the time.

From a teenager in a single-parent family, to a Harvard economics PhD, to a political marginal figure who has repeatedly fought and failed, Navarro's trajectory is full of contradictions.

He looks like a rigorous scholar, but also a radical activist; he has left his footprints in the academic world, and has suffered repeated setbacks in the political arena.

In the tossing and turning of academia and politics, trade protectionism and a tough attitude towards China seem to have long been planted.

The China Threat Theory has long been traceable

From the moment Peter Navarro received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, he was destined not to be satisfied with the calm in the ivory tower.

His subsequent trajectory shows that the newly promoted doctor has developed a strong interest in the global economic landscape.

In 1989, when he joined the University of California, Irvine, he began to transform his academic enthusiasm into sharp criticism. His target is directly aimed at a rising power - China.

What really attracted his attention was a series of works that promoted the theory of China's threat.

In 2006, he published "The Coming China Wars", warning in an almost prophetic tone that China's economic expansion is not only a commercial competition, but also a threat to the survival of the US manufacturing industry.

The book reveals a kind of stubbornness that is almost prejudiced, such as "China's development is a threat to mankind and will bring more conflicts and instability to the world."

At that time, most readers' book reviews on Amazon believed that the book was suspected of deliberate hype and sensationalism.

Although this book did not resonate widely in the mainstream economics community, it caused ripples in some conservative circles.

Five years later, "Death by China" in 2011 pushed Navarro's criticism to a climax. This book is not only an academic analysis, but also more like an indictment.

He radically accused China of systematically destroying the foundation of the US economy through illegal export subsidies, production subsidies, currency manipulation and intellectual property theft...

However, these views of Navarro are not without controversy.

Mainstream economists, such as Simon Johnson of MIT, have publicly criticized his analysis as "too one-sided and ignoring the complexity of the global supply chain"; and Navarro's tough words in the book are in sharp contrast to his generally considered elegant academic image, and he has been labeled an "outlier" in the economics community.

However, Navarro has used more than ten years of academic accumulation to build a set of trade confrontation theories against China. The United States must use tough measures to reverse the trade deficit and protect domestic industries. This theory also laid the groundwork for him to enter Trump's decision-making circle in the future.

His pen has long been pointed at China, and fate will open a bigger door for him in 2016.

Promoted by Trump's son-in-law, he entered the core circle

The book "Deadly China" did not cause a stir in the mainstream economics community, but unexpectedly knocked on the door of Trump's campaign team.

It is reported that in 2016, during Trump's campaign before his first term, his son-in-law Jared Kushner accidentally discovered it on Amazon and was attracted by its sharp criticism of China's trade practices. He immediately recommended the book to Donald Trump.

Trump was very impressed after reading it and said bluntly: "This guy understands my ideas."

Navarro later recalled that his role from the beginning was to "provide analytical support for Trump's trade intuition." Trump, who was born as a businessman, is well versed in trade. The two people's thoughts may coincide in the underlying logic, and the fate was ignited.

On January 20, 2017, the same day Trump was sworn in, Navarro officially entered the White House as the director of the newly established National Trade Council.

His first task was no surprise: targeting China. He quickly promoted the proposal to impose a 43% tariff on Chinese goods and led the policy of imposing a 25% additional tax on steel and aluminum imports.

When the Sino-US trade war was fully launched in 2018, Navarro was everywhere. He declared at a White House briefing: "China must pay the price for its unfair trade."

This year, he also assisted in drafting Trump's tariff order on global steel and aluminum imports, which directly led to trade frictions with the European Union and Canada. Navarro's toughness not only caters to Trump's "America First", but also allows him to gain a foothold in the White House.

However, Navarro's days in the core circle were not all smooth sailing.

In 2020, he published a report accusing election fraud and participated in the "Green Bay Sweep" plan on January 6, 2021, which eventually led to a 4-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress in 2023. Despite this, Trump's trust in him has not diminished, and he even called him a "loyal warrior" in prison.

On January 20, 2025, Trump returned to the White House, and Navarro also returned as a senior trade and manufacturing adviser. This time, his goals are more radical.

In February, he and Stephen Miller co-led the economic discussion on tariffs against Canada, China and Mexico, which promoted the trade policy memorandum signed by Trump on the first day.

The "reciprocal tariff" plan led by Navarro - additional tariffs calculated based on trade deficits, such as 46% for Vietnam and 20% for the European Union - became the cornerstone of the new policy. He defended in an interview with CNBC: "These are not bargaining chips, but necessities for national emergencies."

This position is in line with his academic proposition more than ten years ago.

From a book in 2016 to the trade war brain in 2025, Navarro's connection with Trump is not accidental.

His protectionist ideas are highly consistent with Trump's aversion to trade deficits; his tough personality perfectly matches Trump's policy style.

Despite the controversy and even imprisonment, Navarro has always been the soul of Trump's trade strategy. He walked from the edge of academia to the center of power, relying not only on luck, but also on his obsession with trade confrontation.

The best strategy is to attack the enemy's strategy, the next best is to attack the city

The results of this intersection between Trump and Navarro will soon face the most severe test in the global market in 2025.

Going back to what Navarro said at the beginning, "If you don't sell stocks, you won't lose money." Does this non-mainstream economist really understand the pulse of economic operation?

Navarro may be proficient in tariff data, but he seems to have not penetrated the essence of military tactics.

"The Art of War" says: "The best strategy is to attack the enemy's strategy, the next best is to attack the enemy's alliance, the next best is to attack the enemy's army, and the next best is to attack the city." To defeat the enemy without fighting is the best.

The wisdom of our ancestors is to win through strategy and diplomacy, not to go to war directly.

However, Navarro and Trump's tariff war is just the opposite - choosing a head-on conflict and exchanging so-called "fairness" at a high economic cost.

This head-on approach not only failed to weaken the opponent, but also made American companies and consumers bear the brunt. Economists estimate that 60% of tariffs on China will push up the prices of imported goods, and the American people will ultimately pay the bill.

The reality is far from being just talk.

It has dragged the global economy into a melee. His role as a promoter is undisputed, but whether the cost of this war is worth it remains unknown.