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I have known Peter Navarro for decades. He's a pinata for so many in America. I want to reaffirm who doctor Navarro is. In nineteen ninety four, a bombshell of a book came out of University of California, Irvine. It was called The Coming China Wars, and Peter Navarro Agree or Disagree invented a franchise and conversation point on America and China. A guy up in New York, Donald Trump citizen looked at mister Navarro and said, hey, I can
agree with that. And of course Peter Navarro advises our second term President of the United States as senior counselor to the President. Doctor Navarro, thank you so much for joining Bloomberg today. I want to get right to it, Peter. When you were at Irvine, you lectured on McKinley's capitulation on tariffs. McKinley was the arch Trump like protectionist of the nineteenth century, and he did the Buffalo pivot where
he said, we've got to get more open. Are we in the process now of a modern Buffalo pivot?
Tom?
First of all, I just want to let the Bloomberg audience know how much I admire you. For years I've I just love what you do.
So let me get that out of the way.
McKinley, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton. These are like the four people on the Mount Rushmore of American tariffs. And we are not in any pivot away from that. We are fully embracing a structural shift engineered by Donald Trump in the entire international global trading system in a way which will make that system better and more prosperous.
The problem we've had tom is under the rules, the very rules of the.
World Trade Organization, specifically the most Favored Nation rule, every other nation in the world has had a license to cheat us through higher tariffs, higher non tariff bearers, and the costs, particularly after NAFTA and China joined the World Trade Organization in two thousand and one, has been in the one hundred thousands of factories and the millions of jobs.
And we are reversing that.
And you can see fifty thousand on the now, which I predicted in April.
I'm gonna guification with Trump, either you.
Or Kevin Hasset. I'm gonna give credit for that, Peter Navarre, We're gonna go with you on the sequence here. You mentioned the follow on from NAFTA. I spoke to our Josh Wingrove this morning and he made really clear what we need to know is a president actually thinking about moving away from our trade agreements with Mexico in Canada. Have you ever heard the president say I want out of NAFTA and everything that followed it.
Tom, I'm one of three people, Stephen Miller Dan Scavino being the other two who was with the president from the twenty sixteen campaign through all four years of the first term. And the reason why that happened, among other things, is I never get ahead of the president. I can tell you this that USMCA has some significant flaws in it, and it's going to be reevaluated in July. The Great Jamison Greer, or US Trade Representative will be taking the
lean on that. But nothing ever happens in the White House without the Commander in chief, particularly on trade. So as the Boss says, let's see what happens. But we're
in a situation. One of the things you know, I'm the senior Counselor of Trade Manufacturing and one of One of the things that's really troubling right now, it should be troubling to the variant people, is that Mexico UH and and to extend Canada are basically being used by staging areas for countries like China, some of the European countries, the Asian countries, Jupean Korea, They come into into Mexico and they leverage NAFTA, UH and now US m c A to get into our markets in a way which
essentially is terriff avoidance at best and tariff of evasion at worst.
Could have to deal with that.
Tom accrastination and worldwide. Peter Navarro with us with the Trump administration our Paul Sweeney with doctor Navarro.
Mister Navarro, I guess last night we saw in the House of Representatives they voted to end some of President's tariff agenda against Canada.
Did they overstep their bounds?
What is the response of the administration?
Well, I think it's highly ironic, Paul, that the Democrat Party is opposing tariffs on behalf of working class Americans when it was the Democrat Party, which is supposed to be the party of the working class. They simply because they hate Donald Trump, now they're anti tariff. I think the bigger story is the shame on the three Republicans who defected. Although Thomas Massey I don't consider him of the nice anymore.
I'm being nice.
What I'm just telling them like it is. It's like Nancy, hang on, let me give a compliment to the Democrats.
The Democrats hold ranks and we don't, and we got to stop.
Not holding ranks, sir, because it's very harmful to the party and to this country when we have that kind of thing going on.
Okay, Peter Well said, but let's give two examples right now. Tom Barrett, who's the congressman from Lancing, Michigan. He's got two GM factories up here, his Republican working class constituents who President Trump stole from the Democrats. Tom Barrett is going to fight for his life in that congressional district in Lancing, Michigan. What do you need to do to get Tom Barrett re elected?
Well, okay, so that's a bigger conversation.
I can tell you this.
The stakes have never been higher in a mid term congressional election. If we lose the House in twenty twenty sixteen, we will see a repeat of the impeachment circus craziness that we saw beginning in twenty eighteen. It really was tremendously harmful. The Democrats they hate Trump more than they love this country, is Corey Lewandowski once said, and our strategy now, Look, they're coming at us on affordability number one.
We are turning that around as we speak.
We're taking a micro approach to the macro problem inflation. We're taking it cow by cow, fish by fish, gallon by gallon. And nothing is more important to the President than strong growth in a deflationary environment. Following the four pillars of trump Nomics tax cuts, we got strategic energy dominance, we got deregulation, and of course fair trade. So we're gonna first of all, address the affordability crisis head on. We're making great progress on that. The border issue remains troublesome.
I've got a peace out in a rival network thing today that does the body count when you let millions of illegal aliens in to this country. I mean, we lost two Americans in Minneapolis because of what was going on there, But my calculations, tens of thousands of Americans are going to be either murdered burgled, raped, or assaulted by the illegal aliens unless we deport them.
So that's going to be and that bound zero.
You know, one of the things. We saw very strong jobs report yesterday, but a lot of economs will say, this is an economy that is kind of slow hiring or no hiring, but slow or no cuts in jobs. It's just kind of hanging out there. If you want this economy to grow, many economers would argue, you need a larger workforce. Does that suggest the administration may rethink their immigration policy? Hey?
Hey, god, we had one hundred and seventy thousand private sector jobs created last month. One hundred and seventy thousand. And by the way, Paul, the best answer to your question is increase the labor force participation. Oh, it went up yesterday in the report, even as the unemployment rate
went down. How many times do you see that we're looking at five percent GDP growth and we're looking at earnings, which you're off the charts, and back in April April seventh, to be exact, when the futures for the Dow were thirty eight thousand, My friend, thirty eight thousand on reciprocal Titanic I said fifty thousand on the.
Dot turned to that's all look computer Novar.
His well, Kevin wrote a book like years ago. He never said fifty thousand on the Dow this year. Just to be clear, Peter.
Navarro with us here nationwide and of course some miservin California as well. Peter, you mentioned the midterm elections. Here's the reality for the president right now. You go out I eight across Illinois, you run into the Big River and there's Davenport, Iowa. The Republican in the first congressional district won that district by six votes last time around. They didn't cross the aisle yesterday to vote with the Democrats.
But they've had it with the Navarro Trump trade. What do you need to amend to get Republicans re elected in November?
I just so disagree with that.
Iowa loves Donald Trump, and by the way, farmers love Donald Trump.
Farmers above all.
Understand the necessity for tariffs. And every time there's been retaliation by China or the European, by the Canadians, guests who's had the farmers back. I've personally been involved with the Great Brook rawlings over at the Department of agriculture and making sure that farmers are made whole and can't be used as bargaining chips and pawns in a bigger game.
So I you know, Iowa is Trump country and just it's like you're making assertions that I just I mean, if you start with an assertion that's wrong, then everything that else that follows is.
Peter, I want to get this talking about.
This is too important, and Paul wants to talk about the legal background as well. Peter Navarro, we had a two to three percent terraf regime for whatever reasons, and you were providing leadership on this. We had Liberation Day in the Rose Garden and we went up, up and away, and Toby n Angle at the Ft has brilliantly shown that we've pulled back our blended terriff freight right now,
I'm guessing to ten to eleven percent. Where is Peter Navarro's optimum blended terriff rate if it's not the two to three percent that President Biden and others had before you.
Great question, and the way I like to think about it is.
The trade deficit. The trade deficit.
When it's chronic like it has been, and large like it has been is toxic to the future of this country. First of all, a big trade deficit that's chronic, that's opposed to occasional, is a proxy for all the factories and jobs and supply chains that go offshore. When that happens, that not only hurts us economically, it's hurts us from a national security point of view, as the pandemic underscored.
So there is that.
Secondly, when you run a chronic trade deficit, you're basically shipping your wealth offshore. Done that by the last calculation, I made something like fifteen trillion dollars of our property.
But we're going to s Peter.
Bottom line, Tom, is when the trade deaficy gets to zero.
Then you've got the run that thing.
Okay, well, but by the way, by the way, the goal here is simply fair trade.
And what we're doing, what.
The President is doing with Jamieson Greeer, Scott Bessen, Howard Lugnik are doing is working with our allies and countries around the world to get them to lower their tariffs and trade bearers. And who in bloomberg Land could disagree with that.
As Peter and disagree with the results.
Tom, I got to get this, say because Sweeney's like all Supreme Court right now. Peter Nevaua didn't answer my question. We came up, we had liberations that we did. No, you did not.
We said your question was what will SAT five? Peter Navar and I say, when.
The trailer, what is the zeroimum? What is the optimum blended terrifright? James Diamond wants to know that. Brian moynan wants to know that. Solomon over at Golden Sax wants to know that. And the people in the first Congressional District of Iowa where are we heading is these exemptions come in? Do you see a seven percent optimal terrifreight? Four percent? Do we capitulate and go right back to two to three percent?
So here's a Kevin Spacey aside here, Jamie Diamond, lower.
Your fringing credit card interest rates.
You are a criminal away you charge the American people at twenty two, twenty five and thirty percent, and the president wants you to lower that.
So until Jamie, until you do.
That, please refrain from commenting on other public policies. Okay, Paul got that off my check now and answer respect to your question.
Please, the way we think about it.
This is important is that every country that we trade with is like figure prints, right, they're unique, which is to say they cheat us in their own way. It's like some countries like India have had the highest tariffs, some countries like Japan have had the highest non tariff barriers. Some countries like China have all of that stuff going on. So when you ask me what the what the appropriate tariff would be, it's it's bespoke.
It's like what President Trump does.
He goes country by country by country and he sets the tariffs according to how badly they're cheating us. So there's no there's no blended tariff concept here. It's like a country specifically.
Thank you for that. Let's get Paul Sweeney in here.
He just real quickly.
There's some of President Trump's tariff policies in front of the Supreme Court. To the extent the Supreme Court rules against the administration, what will be its response, Well, first.
Of all, let's talk about the law and the use of i EPAH.
If the Supreme Court wants to rule in favor of President Trump, the law is clearly on the Supreme Court side, and.
You have is a teriff attacks no it's.
A tariff on foreigners, and is a tariff a form of restriction on imports. Of course, it is just like quotas and other things UH and embargoes. So those are the two points of law which this case is about. And if the Supreme Court wants to rule in President's favor, clearly the law is on their side. With respect to Plan B, of course we have a Plan B, but this is not the place for me to talk about it.
If if the decision comes out next Friday, which would be the next time the Supreme Court is going to be releasing decisions, then will the President will speak for on what's going to happen, and then folks like me will come in behind them and explain the details.
Peter, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for commenting on the realities for the first Congressional District of Iowa. I believe it's the eighth congressional district of Michigan as well. And on the world of trade. Peter Navarro, Senior Counselor to the President for Trade and Manufacturing for the President of the United States,