Prominent conservatives in groups from the Club for Growth to the Competititve Enterprise Institute to the National Taxpayers Union have called for the ouster of Clinton-era Democrat Peter Navarro from the Trump White House. National Taxpayers Union Senior Fellow Mattie Duppler wrote recently that “Navarro has a long history of supporting spurious economic policies that inflict demonstrable harm to Americans.”
On the Fox Business Network last night, host Charles Payne confronted Navarro with Duppler’s op-ed; Navarro did not deny that he’s a Clinton-era Democrat, and shrank from the critiques of his trade policy while defending himself as a “pragmatist.”
PAYNE: An article written a couple days ago says that Trump’s biggest accomplishments are being undermined by a Democrat in the White House, Peter Navarro... People are worried that you’re a true protectionist - not someone who wants to use tariffs as a weapon, but someone who believes so deeply in them that you think it should be the way we operate our economy from here on out.
NAVARRO: Personally, professionally I view myself as a pragmatist... You look at the international trade situation and how the U.S. is being used as a piggy bank and the pragmatist says hey we need to change that, we need fair and reciprocal trade.
“Fair trade,” a favorite phrase of Navarro’s, was popularized by protectionists and labor unions in the 1990s in opposition to the successful free trade deals that emerged. As the Trump Administration continues to engage in NAFTA renegotiations, Navarro’s influence continues to be felt: big old-boys-network labor unions look to be coming out on top, while free trade will suffer.
As a Time Magazine piece recently explained, Navarro has built his career on catering to corrupt labor unions, and has carried that fervor into a Republican White House. Here are what some conservatives are saying about Peter Navarro, the Clinton Democrat in the Trump White House.
Mattie Duppler, Senior Fellow at the National Taxpayers Union:
“Navarro has a long history of supporting spurious economic policies that inflict demonstrable harm to Americans — he recently commended President Barack Obama’s “stimulus” spending and debt package, and for decades called for even more progressivity in the tax code (Navarro called the Reagan tax cuts — the precursor to Trump’s signing of the Tax Cut and Job Acts — the “biggest rip-off of all time” ).”
Ryan Ellis, President of the Center for a Free Economy:
Navarro has a lot more in common with Barack Obama than Donald Trump.
Back in his Congressional run, he castigated the Republican coalition in California as “frightened seniors and white, angry, blue-collar men” (shades of people “clinging to their guns and their religion” a decade and a half later).
He was a strong supporter of Obama initiatives such as illegalized incandescent light bulbs, taxpayer-subsidized wind energy, and carbon taxes. On the environmental front, Navarro is about as liberal as they come. We shouldn’t be surprised – at the 1996 Democratic convention he called Nancy Pelosi “street-smart” and “savvy” and Hillary Clinton “gracious, intelligent, perceptive, and, yes, classy.”
Tom Giovanetti, President at the Institute for Policy Innovation:
Trump's trade war is being led by a Hillary-loving, Christian-bashing, Limbaugh-hating, tax-loving, social progressive environmentalist wacko Democrat "a-hole" who spoke at the 1996 Democrat convention.
Ryan Young, fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute:
“Peter Navarro may have set a record for the most errors in a single Wall Street Journal column… He should take the same advice that Brett Favre once gave to a referee: take two weeks off, then quit.”