Peter Navarro, Industrial Policy, and the Role of Individuals in Changing History

Alexander Gray

During most of the nearly two years I served as Dr. Peter Navarro’s deputy in the White House Office of Trade & Manufacturing Policy, we kept on our wall a quote from Professor W.A.S. Hewins, the first Director of the London School of Economics: “Suppose an industry which is threatened [by foreign competition] is one which lies at the very root of your system of national defense, where are you then? You could not get on without an iron industry, a great engineering trade, because in modern warfare you would not have the means of producing, and maintaining in a state of efficiency, your fleets and armies.”

            Although the quote from Professor Hewins was from the early twentieth century United Kingdom (UK), the parallels to the second decade of the twenty first century in the United States could not have been more pronounced. Peter and I looked at this quote every day to remind us of two fundamental truths confronting the U.S. during the late 2010s: first, that the United States’ national security was being dangerously eroded by the decimation of our domestic industrial base through misguided trade and manufacturing policies; and second, that persuasion and leadership could change the national debate on this topic.

            Peter’s lonely advocacy for a rethinking of America’s trade policy will no doubt be his greatest legacy as a public figure. Yet, close behind, will be his willingness to use the Office of Trade & Manufacturing Policy to explain, both within and without the U.S. government, the importance of a strong and productive defense industrial base to U.S. national security. As Peter would often say to me, too many administrations of both parties had chosen to sacrifice U.S. trade and economic policy on the altar of national security by entering strategically-beneficial trade agreements without regard for the economic implications for Americans. Yet, Peter could also have added that a failure to see the economic implications of misguided trade policy ended up hurting American national security by hollowing out our industrial base and leaving the U.S. vulnerable in the unfolding Great Power competition era.

            Peter used his office to inject a defense industrial base perspective into nearly every substantive policy conversation touching on trade and national security, from arms sales globally to fighting for Buy America policies like the Jones Act and the Cargo Preference Act to advocating for transitioning veterans looking to serve in the U.S. Merchant Marine. But most importantly, Peter used his bully pulpit to bring before President Trump Executive Order 13806, “Assessing and Strengthening the Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States.” For the first time in U.S. history, every agency and department of the federal government was tasked with investigating the readiness of the industrial base for Great Power conflict. The results, including identifying nearly 300 gaps in the industrial base, painted a dire picture of an industrial capacity that had been allowed to atrophy over thirty years of ideologically driven trade policy.

            But this brings me to the second truth that Peter and I took from the story behind Professor Hewins’ quote that hung on our wall. Britain, at the turn of the twentieth century, was waking up to the reality that their industrial predominance was being overtaken by Imperial Germany and the United States. Britain also realized that a rigid, ideologically-driven, adherence to free trade dogma would leave the UK vulnerable and unable to provide for its own defense in the likely conflicts to come. Politicians from varying political persuasions saw the danger and convinced the country of the necessity of making tariff policy changes in the years before World War I. History isn’t a straight line, and people can make a difference at critical moments. President Trump and Peter Navarro were two such figures.

            In the hopefully brief time that Peter will be away from this space, I’ll occasionally offer some thoughts on what an American industrial policy to prevail in the competition with the People’s Republic of China could look like in the years to come.

Under President Donald J. Trump, Alexander B. Gray served as Special Assistant to the President for the Defense Industrial Base in the White House Office of Trade & Manufacturing Policy (2017-18); Director for Oceania & Indo-Pacific Security at the National Security Council (NSC) (2018-19); and Deputy Assistant to the President & Chief of the Staff of the NSC (2019-2021). Alexander is a guest columnist for Peter Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America.

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