Mornings With Maria (FBN) – Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro Interview

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Mornings With Maria (FBN) – Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro Interview

MARIA BARTIROMO: joining me white house senior counsel for trade manufacturing peter navarro with me welcome back great to see you.

SENIOR COUNSELOR PETER NAVARRO: great to be with you.

BARTIROMO: i know you are not getting ahead of the boss, i know that. but

COUNSELOR NAVARRO: thank you

BARTIROMO: yes you've been a central voice in shaping the america first trade policy, with the president now signaling more moves. not necessarily what should we be expecting, because i know you’re not getting ahead of the boss but what do you think the playing field should be looking like? with regard to trade and tariffs at the present time.

COUNSELOR NAVARRO: well lets always keep the big prize in mind, trillion dollars trade deficit every year. and that costs us jobs in factories president trump is doing fundamental structural reset of international trade works, and going to work now to our advantage rather than their advantage. and so what tariff regime, tax cuts, being paid for to the tune of billions and billions and billions of dollars, were taking in billions already, and going to see as we are seeing trillions of dollars in new investment come here. the the letters that have gone out already 14 letters basically set tariffs between 25% and 40%, whats interesting now, is we're in a position where the president has covered over 90% of the trade deficit with a handful of country, about 150 countries, were dealing with, but only about 15 of them account for over well over 90% of the trade deficit so we are in a very good place. listened to kevin o'leary earlier on your show markets are absorbing very well they understand as kevin pointed out, these are all negotiations as we move in time. i think the key thing here and why jay powell is so wrong about not lowering rates, is to recognize, the enormous ability of the world to absorb the tariffs like navarro's law the bigger screw job that were getting from any given country, the more that country is able to absorb the tariffs. and that’s what were seeing, the more they cheat the more they can absorb tariffs we are seeing tariffs on countries around the world not seeing inflation, because basically, they are eating tariffs eating the it because they cheat us you and i talked for years about the scope of the cheating it is not just china, it is europe, it is vietnam, it is cambodia it is japan, it’s all the countries that now we have some kind of significant tariffs on, and it is a national security threat we keep running big deficits, because it takes away from our asset transfers wealth a shorthanded for the export of jobs factories investment abroad president trump says no mas, no more, don't know what it is, you get my drift.

BARTIROMO: you heard sergio ermotti ceo ubs talking strengthening macrostory also talking about clarity, this need for information to understand what the price is, so i think that is why he believes so many companies not making the investments that they ought to be making right now in terms of r and d infrastructure, et cetera, so do you think we are going to get clarity say by the end of the summer in terms of what countries are paying what price? what the tariffs look like? because the uncertainty of it he believes that others do as well, is what is keeping some businesses from investing today.

COUNSELOR NAVARRO: well if i were a market analyst, instead of working at the white house would be very simple for me to have clarity on all of this, i would simply look at different council size of trade deficit u.s. runs with those countries, i would able to be very easily calibrate, where the only mat tariff would likely land given president trump's insistence that we have a level-playing field, and that we reduce or eliminate our trade deficit from national security reasons, i think that there is tremendous clarity right now president has been very clear, about what the goal is and how going to get there, there is has been we had initial reciprocal tariffs, we rolled back to give folks time, and letters have gone out calibrate more plenty of clarity, by the way, i don't know what ubs is doing i am seeing trillions dollars investment come into this country, because of the tariffs.\

BARTIROMO: yeah. we talked about that and i just mentioned the president has brought wealth back to america, but you are rightly, when you look at the revenue generated from tariffs talking about hundreds of analyzed as well, in our take what president trump is doing in terms of issue pressuring american companies to bring back home apple front and center not moving production out of china fast enough i want your take how to respond but there is exactly, what i thought of when president trump talked last night about upwards of 200% tariffs on are pharmaceuticals, because we learned a hard lesson during covid, when the chinese propaganda machine came out with those tweets saying maybe we won't send the you were pharmaceutical components to america that they need right now maybe they will just get sick, we cannot rely on adversary for something as important as pharmaceuticals. so i understand, the president's thinking on that what about somebody like apple, who makes phones?

COUNSELOR NAVARRO: well, look apple is sui generis. we go to 2017 2018 and were putting tariffs on china, and tim cook coming to white house begging pleading to give more time that was how many years ago? and so, the problem is that apple has, i think like too big to tariff some sense, and it’s used that line, so president has made very clear i don't think you can judge the rest of industry by apple. so, let's see what happens apple has message now, will move faster they can do it ai, advanced manufacturing they caning do it.

BARTIROMO: quick i know you wrote op-ed on jay powell, you said he is the worst fed chair of them all. would you like to see jay powell step down?

COUNSELOR NAVARRO: i like to see federal reserve begin lowering interest rates july 29^th, and the case in op-ed on the hill there is one out in washington times does numbers great being with you, maria, just always enjoy this.

BARTIROMO: always, peter navarro, we’ll be right back.