TRANSCRIPT DR. NAVARRO INTERVIEW WITH ROB SCHMITT ON NEWSMAX – 07.15.2025
ROB SCHMITT: Peter Navarro is the Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing, and he joins us now from the White House. Good to have you back on. To the average American that’s not too equipped on AI, tell us why today is so important, why this was so critical.
DR. NAVARRO: Well, Rob, what it does is synergistically it weds some of the greatest assets of the State of Pennsylvania, and it’s a wave of the future for the rest of this country. We know that artificial intelligence is going to be a tremendous productivity-enhancing technology. What AI does is it basically harnesses all the knowledge of the past and uses that in massive computers to basically think through new problems in ways which are unimaginably fast. But the downside of AI is it uses tremendous, tremendous amounts of energy so that when we have these data centers they’re going to be fueled by power plants and we’re really going to have to up our game. Now, the beauty of Pennsylvania, synergistically, is it’s got some of the greatest energy resources of this country, and the fracking, it’s got facilities that used to be manufacturing. Many of them we’re going to make manufacturing again, but in this case, returning facilities into data centers. And so, it’s a beautiful marriage, and we’re going to see more jobs in both the energy sector and in the infrastructure and supply chains that service AI. So, this was a great event. Pittsburgh is absolutely one of my favorite cities in America. It’s a story of renaissance. The Rust Belt came, and then they had healthcare kind of revive it. But what’s beautiful about what President Trump has been doing is we were able to revive the Steel Belt right around Pittsburgh, as well as throughout the rest of the state, with the steel tariffs, so this state is absolutely humming. Economically, it’s critical to the United States, but politically, it’s like, the people of Pennsylvania gotta love Donald Trump.
SCHMITT: Yeah.
DR. NAVARRO: I mean, he’s thinking about this so out the box, and the President carried it handily, and with these kinds of things, he should do that – the Republicans should handily carry that again.
SCHMITT: Yeah. I was trying to think. Didn’t they – they just had something in the Pittsburgh area. I think it was – was it for the tariffs? He went to the steel – he went to, like, the steel mill. It was only like a couple months ago.
DR. NAVARRO: Yeah.
SCHMITT: I think it’s his second trip to Pittsburgh in just a couple of months, which is something else. All right, so we – very important stuff.
DR. NAVARRO: Well, we had the – we had the –
SCHMITT: Yeah, go ahead.
DR. NAVARRO: Yeah. Well, we had – we had the Nippon Steel deal, where there’s going to be tremendous investment in what’s called the Mon Valley. And we’re doubling down our commitment to what used to be the old-style way of making steel, and we’re going to totally modernize that. So, that’s – and the billions of dollars that are coming in, Rob, it’s just amazing. This is going to fuel our economy, fuel wages up, and everything’s going to be good.
SCHMITT: Yeah. Tremendous private-sector investments from this Administration. So much different than the way of the last one, which was just dumping money into government, and they just waste it away.
DR. NAVARRO: Yeah. Alternate universe there, my friend.
SCHMITT: I want to talk inflation for a second. 2.7, the annual rate for June. That is up from 2.4, May, 2.3, April, the months prior. What’s your response to that? I know the White House says we’re still under three, that’s good. But it’s moving in that direction that, in a way, I think, some people would say vindicates some of Jerome Powell’s concerns.
DR. NAVARRO: No, not at all. And it was below expectations, which I think is the key figure. I think that what we’re seeing here is, with the energy sector, in particular, with oil prices, that helps pull down prices everywhere else. We definitely believe the Federal Reserve is at least 50 to 100 basis points behind the curve. If you look at where interest rates are in the rest of the world, we’re clearly the ones who are the holdout in terms of lowering things. We’ve watched this carefully. The last thing we want is a stagflationary event like the ‘70s, but this was a good number in that it was below expectations, and we’re just going to keep moving forward.
SCHMITT: Still an anticipation that Powell will cut rates toward the end of the year? Is that still expected on Wall Street?
DR. NAVARRO: Look, I think the best-case scenario for America is for the Board of Governors, the rest of them, to take the decision out of Jay Powell’s hands. He – he has no clue about Trumpnomics. In the first administration, he made a severe policy error. Underestimating the ability of tax cuts, deregulation, strategic energy dominance, and fair trade to stimulate growth without stimulating inflation. He raised rates too fast then, and that cost us a point of GDP growth, which is huge.
SCHMITT: Yeah. A trillion –
DR. NAVARRO: I mean, that’s almost like a million jobs that weren’t created because of him. And he’s doing it again. And I – look, you’ve got to wonder, at this point, Rob, whether it’s out of stupidity or spite or both. He clearly doesn’t like the President, he clearly sucked up to Joe Biden to get reappointed, he made a severe policy blunder during Biden’s term by waiting too long to raise rates –
SCHMITT: Right. Yeah.
DR. NAVARRO: – and keeping his mouth shut when the Democrats and Biden were engaged in fiscally irresponsible bills. It is the responsibility – make no mistake about this, Rob. It’s the responsibility of the Fed Chair to speak up rather than simply accommodate fiscal irresponsibility with his mouth closed. So, Powell has made three major blunders, and it’s time for the Board of Governors to have a little revolution there. And they can vote to cut rates. They don’t have to wait for Jay Powell’s lead.
SCHMITT: Yeah. And I know the President, I think, has a replacement in mind for when he can finally get Powell out of there. Peter Navarro, thanks so much. We appreciate it.
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