Peter Navarro Used To Be A Democrat. Today He's The Architect Of President Trump's Trade War

If Peter Navarro ever doubted that he was a Democrat, a look at the other side was enough to convince him. Republicans talked about virtue and prosperity, but they were really a bunch of greedy, intolerant hypocrites, he thought.

- Molly Ball

The “insufferably bigoted, close-minded, and dangerously well-disciplined storm troopers on the religious right,” he wrote in a 1998 memoir, San Diego Confidential, “wield far too much influence at the ballot box.” The GOP was in thrall to “buffoons, sociopaths, and zealots like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Ralph Reed.” Its economic policies consisted of “tax schemes to further enrich the rich,” and its leaders could not be trusted “to do anything but trash the environment under the phony banner of economic progress.”

Twenty years ago, Navarro was a liberal economist who admired Hillary Clinton, argued for taxing the rich and had run for office as a Democrat four times. Today he is a top economic adviser to a Republican President. As Donald Trump’s director of trade and industrial policy, Navarro is known for his advocacy of tariffs and opposition to trade deals. It is Navarro who has pushed Trump to wage an escalating trade war that pits the U.S. against not only economic adversaries like China but also allies like Canada and the European Union. He is the most powerful person in Washington on the most volatile issue of Trump’s presidency.