The Claman Countdown (FBN) – Senior Trade Advisor Peter Navarro Interview

More on the Trump Tariff Court Decision

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The Claman Countdown (FBN) – Senior Trade Advisor Peter Navarro Interview

LIZ CLAMAN: Here to talk about that, and of course, the court ruling and what happens next is Peter Navarro, senior counselor to the president for trade and manufacturing, live from the White House lawn. Peter, thank you for getting in front of the cameras for us. The 10 day deadline clock for the administration to stop collecting nearly all the tariffs is ticking, according to that court. Is the President going to defy the court's order.

SENIOR TRADE ADVISOR PETER NAVARRO: So there's so much to unpack there. I'm standing here listening for about 10 minutes like all these things going on. I mean, let's start with Karl Rove. Karl Rove is the guy who lost the Georgia two Senate seats for us, and he's his day has passed about for a decade ago. He hates the tariffs. He hates Donald Trump. Anything he says is totally discounted, and he said the same stuff during the first term. He said that consumers were going to eat the tariffs. They did not shame on you. Karl Rove, when are you going to learn, sir. With respect to the market you're talking about, you seem to indicate that the markets were excited about this court ruling, the fact that the matter is the market is flat today on this ruling, because nothing's really changed. What Ed should have and could have added to his analysis was the fact that the court itself said that the Trump administration can accomplish the same things using different authorities under the law.

CLAMAN: Okay but you're saying that there's an option but, but Peter, if you knew that the economic emergency justification was going to be successfully challenged, why did the administration use that instead of starting with section 122 which allows the government to slap 15% tariffs for 150 days on countries who have trade imbalances with the US?

ADVISOR NAVARRO: Well, first of all, your assumptions flawed. The we didn't assume that the courts were going to successfully challenge and by the way, that's a lower it's going to go to the appeals court next and likely to the Supreme Court. We feel like we're on very strong legal grounds in both the fentanyl tariff case and the reciprocal tariff case. So there is that. And with respect to the legal arguments themselves, these are rogue judges that are basically (crosstalk)

CLAMAN: That was appointed by Donald Trump. That's a rogue judge? (crosstalk)

ADVISOR NAVARRO: There was one appointed by Donald Trump (crosstalk)

CLAMAN: and one by Reagan. (crosstalk)

ADVISOR NAVARRO: that one career bureaucrat over USTR. But more importantly, the person who wrote the decision, Rastani, was appointed by Reagan, free trader. She's the one who took the lead trying to stop the section 232 tariffs and got overruled in the appeals court. So there's a lot of stuff going on at the look, let me give you stuff that you don't, you’re not going to read about (crosstalk)

CLAMAN: Well, speaking of appeals, Peter, hold on, you’ll want to hear this (crosstalk)

ADVISOR NAVARRO: Hang on, let me (crosstalk)

CLAMAN: No no no no, you’ll want to hear this. It's breaking news. A US appeals court, according to Reuters, has reinstated the Trump tariffs during the appeal, so there is a stay here. This is breaking news.

ADVISOR NAVARRO: As we fully expected, because they're wrong on the law on both the fentanyl and the reciprocal, and we can get into that. I mean, look, here's, here's the issue this. This is a suit here. You haven't heard this yet. Let me tell you this now. The suit was brought by 12 states, every single one of them Democrat attorney generals, blue states, from Oregon and Washington on the Left Coast to Connecticut, New York, on the elite coast. Okay, this is a Democrat thing. Democrats are going to have to own this. They're going to have to own it in the midterm. They're going to have to own it in 28 because Donald Trump ran on an agenda that said he was going to stop China and the Mexican drug cartels from poisoning Americans, and Ian on a platform that said that we were going to have the world stop cheating us and transferring over a trillion dollars of wealth a year abroad. And this court, three people who hate tariffs and who are free trade, or democrat or republican or RINOs said in a rogue decision that we can't do that. Now let's look at the decisions. If you look at the fentanyl one, they basically had this like weird legal doctrine that said what what the president did in the executive branch was not the best way or the most direct way to achieve the goal of stopping fentanyl. Who are they to choose? That's a violation of the separation of housing, the judicial executive branch. With respect to the reciprocal tariffs, they said that we went too far. Well, how far is too far? We've got a $1.3 trillion deficit. Every major country in the world that trades with us has higher tariffs, higher non tariff barriers, and they cheat us, and we lose factories, jobs and we're losing lives of the fentanyl.

CLAMAN: But the point is, the point is that that using the emergency economic issue is overreach, that that is not justifiable. So if you could, can you explain the Administration’s (crosstalk)

ADVISOR NAVARRO: That's why we have an appeals court and a Supreme Court. How many times have lower court rulings been overturned? And by the way, it's not like we don't we were caught on our heels on this we saw the oral arguments last week. We knew going in that that court was was a weak spot we have. I mean, that's why the markets are behaving the way they were. We got the numbers, the 122s, the 232s, the 301s, the 338, there's all sorts of ways we Donald Trump can protect the American people from unfair trade and fentanyl poison. And by the way, 2019 since 2019 the president of China, Xi Jinping, promised Donald Trump and the American people he'd stop killing us. And that hasn't happened.

CLAMAN: So Peter, we have a whole show. Mary Barra of General Motors is coming up. We're going to ask her about tariffs, because they still are on the autos. But could you explain the administration's justification quickly? If you could, and the legality of economic emergency in vocation here on Bratz dolls and Wayfair furniture and Lululemon yoga pants, that's going to be a hard sell to a court that those are economic emergencies that deserve tariffs.

ADVISOR NAVARRO: Okay, so let's take the fentanyl issue.

CLAMAN: I said Lululemon and Wayfair.

ADVISOR NAVARRO: You want to do the reciprocal tariffs?

CLAMAN: Yes, yeah.

ADVISOR NAVARRO: Well, look that. Look there, there. There specs in grains of sand in a sea of a trade $1.3 trillion trade deficit, and they are retail outlets that go to China and benefit from their Seven Deadly Sins of job destruction, whether it's the currency manipulation, the counterfeiting, the piracy, the subsidies and everything on in between, and the emergency is $1.3 trillion a year going abroad. $18 trillion of American wealth so far transferred into foreign hands and millions of jobs lost, hundreds of 1000s of factories gone. That's the emergency, and the American people understand this, main street understands this, Wall Street is in denial about this, and this rogue court apparently doesn't think that having Main Street America dying from fentanyl and not having jobs is an emergency. We think it is, and it damn well is.

CLAMAN: Peter, thank you very much. I do appreciate you getting in front of the camera, and we're going to continue to follow this, because, as you see, the breaking news is that a US appeals court has reinstated the Trump tariffs, at least during the appeal process.