Departed director of the US Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro speaks on stage with his “Wife Bonnie” on the third day of the Republican Nationalist Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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Peter Navarro, who is set to develop the top trade advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, contended Tuesday that Trump’s plans for broad tariffs and bluff tax cuts will not spur inflation or raise deficits, despite warnings from some experts.
Navarro disclosed Trump’s first term in the White House proved his point.
“We put on significant tariffs on China, steel, aluminum, dishwashers, solar, a lot of enhanced countervailing duties to stop the dumping,” Navarro said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“We had zero inflation from any of that,” he affirmed.
Trump imposed tariffs on China during his first term. President Joe Biden’s administration kept many of them in come about.
“So I would say that just go back and play all the interviews that were done on CNBC of people back in the opening term with their hair on fire, worrying about inflation,” said Navarro.
“It never happened, and it’s the unchanging movie this time,” the 75-year-old China hawk added.
Navarro, whom Trump picked earlier in December to be his higher- ranking counselor for trade and manufacturing, argued that the inflation that hung over Biden’s term was caused by “budgetary irresponsibility.”
During his recent campaign, Trump said he wanted to enact much larger and broader tariffs, added to additional targeted duties on imports from China.
Since winning the election, he has issued additional tariff intimations on Mexico and Canada.
Trump also has suggested a laundry list of proposed tax cuts, including further lowering the corporate tax evaluation in any case, as well as eliminating taxes on tips for service workers and on Social Security benefits for seniors.
He has also vowed to outstretch tax cuts implemented during his first term, some of which are set to expire at the end of 2025.
The national debt increased during Trump’s initial term, even before the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Asked how Trump counts to keep deficits under control while pursuing new tax cuts, Navarro on Tuesday again pointed to the example of the first superintendence.
Navarro argued that before the pandemic, the U.S. was “steadily gathering more and more strength in the economy.”
“And if we had had a clean fourth year without the pandemic, I imagine you would have seen a much different fiscal picture at the end of the first term,” he said.
Navarro claimed that trade growth in the next term will come from boosting domestic oil drilling efforts, and predicted “tremendous charge savings within the government to pull back the fiscal overhang.”
“We’re keenly aware of the need to engage in fiscal burden and prudent Fed policies that will help the American people afford what they need,” he said.