TRANSCRIPT
The Will Cain Show (FNC) – Senior Trade Counselor Peter Navarro Interview
WILL CAIN: My next guest says, the tariff policy net policy is necessary to keep nations from cheating. Senior White House counsel for Trade and Manufacturing, Peter Navarro. Peter, it's always good to see you. Thanks for being here. I know you've said that people say President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize. You're now nominating him for the economic Nobel Prize.
SENIOR COUNSELOR PETER NAVARRO: Well, he certainly stopped a lot of wars, and no question he deserves the peace prize. But think about this Will. Basically, President Trump has taught an economic lesson to the world in real time. In the real world. He's taught that the biggest country and biggest market in the world can impose tariffs in order to address blatant cheating and do it in a way which increases the growth of the United States without inducing inflation. And actually over time will help all the other trading partners who are doing it. That's pretty good. I never read that in the textbooks when I was getting my PhD in economics, but that's the way the world works. President Trump, let's get him two Nobel Prizes.
CAIN: Do you think, Peter, do you feel confident that the tariff policies will hold up ultimately in court? We heard the arguments today at the appellate court level. The tariffs were paused. Although that pause was stayed at the lower court level, it is expected it'll end up at the Supreme Court. Where do you feel about the president's power under the 1977 Act to continue to manage tariff policy?
SENIOR COUNSELOR NAVARRO: Very encouraged by the dialogue that happened in the court today. Will, the big picture here is that we have a national emergency in the form of a massive and chronic trade deficit. The tune of over trillion dollars a year, cumulatively over $18 trillion. The emergency comes in the form of many ways. I mean, first of all, it's a pure transfer of American wealth every time we run a deficit. So we've sent $18 trillion of our wealth offshore in the last decade or so. What you do is it's a proxy for all the jobs we lose, all the factories that get shut down, all the tax revenues we lose all the growth that we lose. And most importantly, from a national security point of view, it's undermined our defense industrial base, and our manufacturing industrial base. If you remember the way we won World War 2, it wasn't what's just with the brave soldiers, sailors and pilots, it was what they called the arsenal of democracy, the factories in places like Detroit that were mobilized. So we are very, very confident that the national emergency of a trade deficit is on the most solid of grounds. And you just look at the results, Will, look at the results. The president used the tariffs as a tool. What have we've gotten? We've gotten better trade deals from almost every country in the world, and the ones we're still working with, like India and Canada and China, we're moving forward with progress. So this is like a textbook case of how the IEPA, the authority we're using should be used. President Trump is using it beautifully, and I think the court understands now seeing how it's actually worked in practice. It's a home run in terms of the application of this executive power, sir.
CAIN: It would be interesting, Peter, I mean, with Republican control of the House and the Senate, I know how hard it is to wrangle everyone, even if they have the same party affiliation by their name, if they couldn't, ultimately, once these deals are passed, be passed through Congress, that'll be also something fascinating. And then this court battle is of no consequence. But Peter Navarro, it's always great to see you. Thank you.
