TRANSCRIPT – DR. NAVARRO INTERVIEW WITH MARIA BARTIROMO ON FOX BUSINESS – 07.31.2025
MARIA BARTIROMO: Joining me now is the White House Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing Peter Navarro. Peter, great to see you. Thank you so much for being here.
DR. NAVARRO: You tired of winning yet, Maria?
BARTIROMO: [Laughs] A lot of deals here, and it looks like the U.S. is in the lead in terms of what the treatment is for our products versus theirs. Is the President almost done with these trade deals? This is incredible.
DR. NAVARRO: Never done, but we’ve – we’ve got some of the biggest ones out of the way. Let me break down a couple of ’em for you. The South Korean deal broke late yesterday, personally negotiated by the President. Each of these deals, Maria, are customized depending on what we need and what the other country’s doing to us. With the South Korean deal, it’s kind of built on the Japanese model. We got a bunch of money. The key thing here is shipbuilding. South Korea has a tremendous, tremendous amount of expertise in shipbuilding. We got tariffs, of course, and if you compare the two economies, South Korea’s about half the size of Japan, so that 350 billion that we’re getting from South Korea is comparable to the 550 billion we got from Japan. So, this is – Japan was an energy deal. Pakistan – interesting, Maria, they just discovered a bunch of new oil and natural gas reserves, and natural gas reserves are particularly massive. So that deal kind of hinged on that, as well. So, all of these things are working really, really well. You know, a lot of people, Maria, talk about Donald Trump for the peace prize, the Nobel Peace Prize. I’m thinking that since he’s basically taught the world trade economics, he might be up for the Nobel on economics, because he – this is a fundamental restructuring of the international trade environment in a way where the biggest market in the world has said, ‘You’re not going to cheat us anymore. We’re going to have fair deals.’ And everything he’s doing has defied the critics. The tariffs have been tax cuts rather than inflation –
BARTIROMO: Yep.
DR. NAVARRO: – and it’s just working beautifully.
BARTIROMO: Yeah. You’re right, Peter. These deals are happening now fast and certainly look incredibly effective. The EU deal was one we should talk about, because this is such an enormous bloc of countries. And the President negotiated that the EU will purchase 750 billion dollars in U.S. energy and make new investments of 600 billion into the United States by 2028.
DR. NAVARRO: Yeah, I’m always particularly heartened by this, and it really speaks to the personal ability of the President to negotiate with world leaders. I mean, all of the relationships he developed in the first term are paying off now. I really thought the EU was going to be one of the more difficult ones, but they saw the light. I mean, the problem here for every country in the world is they know they’re cheating us. They know they’re getting away with murder, essentially, on our economy. And so reason prevailed here and this is a case where everybody’s going to win. We were able to keep – and this is very important to the President – the steel and aluminum tariffs at 50%. What the EU got was a discount on the auto tariffs comparable to what Japan got –
BARTIROMO: I see.
DR. NAVARRO: – so everything’s kind of competitively well.
BARTIROMO: I see.
DR. NAVARRO: But still, Ford, GM, and the local – our companies are better off relative to when the President took office by a long shot.
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
DR. NAVARRO: So, it’s just all – it’s all synergistic and working together. And when we make one deal here, that helps to make the next deal here. India’s the big hold-out. But look, they’re the Maharaja of Tariffs, they just – we don’t sell them much, and they just – their tariffs are unbelievably high. So, that one – that one we’re going to keep working on.
BARTIROMO: Yeah. I mean, the President has imposed, or is talking about imposing a 25% tariff on goods from India.
DR. NAVARRO: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Plus an additional import tax due to India’s purchasing of Russian oil. I thought that was really interesting. He wrote on Truth Social, “I don’t care what India does with Russia. They can take their dead economies down together, for all I care. We have done very little business with India, their Tariffs are too high, among the highest in the World. Likewise, Russia and the USA do almost no business together.” White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett talked about the President’s decision yesterday. Here’s what he said, Peter. Watch.
[CLIP OF DIRECTOR HASSETT SPEAKING]: India’s had a market that’s been pretty much closed to American products, and we’ve been wide open to theirs. And I think President Trump is frustrated with the progress we’ve made with India, but feels that a 25 percent tariff will address and remedy the situation in a way that is good for the American people.
BARTIROMO: I guess some of this is the non-tariff barriers, Peter, that you’ve spoken about so many times. So, whether it’s India or also what the President said about Brazil, right? I mean, he signed an executive order implementing an additional 40 percent tariff on Brazil, bringing that total tariff to 50 percent to deal with recent policies, practices, and actions by the government of Brazil against the former President Bolsonaro.
DR. NAVARRO: Yeah, let me give you a little background. Let’s do India first. Historically, India has followed this quote ‘non-allied’ policy, and they were really tight with the Soviet Union decades back. And one of the things that frosts us is a lot of the arms sales that India is engaged in – because they buy the stuff from Russia, not us. So, that’s another area where we could balance our – remember, this is a national emergency –
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
DR. NAVARRO: – the trade deficit, and that would be a good way to do that. With respect to Brazil, this one hits really close to home for me, because right now, Lulu – Lula – in Brazil –
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
DR. NAVARRO: – the president of Brazil, is doing the same damn thing to Bolsonaro that Biden tried to do to Donald John Trump –
BARTIROMO: That’s right.
DR. NAVARRO: – and actually did to me. And this – this will not stand. The President is not going to allow it. I mean, Lula is trying to – Bolsonaro and Jair can’t run for president again, he’s after his son –
BARTIROMO: That’s right.
DR. NAVARRO: It’s like, it’s déjà vu all over again. Brazil cannot – and, I’ll tell you what, Lula is flushing that country down the drain, turning it over to China, and it’s going to turn into Venezuela if they follow the Lula line, so good for the President for standing up here.
BARTIROMO: Well, President Trump is true to his principles and loyal to those principles. And that keeps showing up. But then there’s China, Peter. And, you know, we talk about China so much because it’s such a bad actor. Now it wants to expand influence over the Panama Canal even further. That potential deal to sell off dozens of international ports seems to have collapsed. China-based CK Hutchison said the negotiating window has expired to sell the ports, including two in Panama to the consortium involving Blackrock. The company says it remains open to reconfiguring the deal, but Beijing is pushing to include its shipping giant Cosco to the transaction. I spoke with President Trump back in March about this. Watch what he said.
[CLIP OF PRESIDENT TRUMP SPEAKING ON MARCH 9]: It was a China-based company. I’d much rather deal with Blackrock than a China-based company. And Blackrock is fine. I knew they were doing that. I was – I was totally okay with it.
[BARTIROMO]: And when you go through the Panama Canal –
[PRESIDENT TRUMP]: Makes it easier. You understand, Jimmy Carter –
[BARTIROMO]: Give us a sense of how China has dominated.
[PRESIDENT TRUMP]: The Carter administration gave the Panama Canal – for one dollar – gave the Panama Canal to Panama. For no reason. They had a little demonstration of a few people, and he gave it. It’s the most expensive thing we’ve ever built in the history of our country, relatively…and it’s – it does great. And we shouldn’t have given it. We should have never given it. But we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama. And now Panama has gone out and essentially given it, ceded it, to China. And until they ripped all the signs down about a week ago when they saw that I was serious about this – you know, most of the signs were written in Chinese. They were all Chinese all over the place. That wasn’t the deal. We’re taking the Panama Canal back.
BARTIROMO: Well, I mean, Peter, President Trump was so smart to deal with all these other countries before China to put China in a box, but if China gains more access to the Panama Canal – it certainly dominates the canal, controlling more trade, how does that play into U.S. manufacturing and a potential trade deal?
DR. NAVARRO: Well, Donald Trump’s not going to let that happen. And one of the many, many things I love about Donald Trump is he actually sees the chessboard. I mean, think about it, Maria, who ever said anything about the Panama Canal –
BARTIROMO: Yeah. That’s right.
DR. NAVARRO: – until Donald Trump got in office. And you’re absolutely right. It’s critical, the geopolitics and the way the world works. It’s all about trade. I mean, there was a famous scholar of naval warfare, Mahan. It’s like, everything’s about trade. If you control the sea lanes, you control the world. And Donald Trump understands that.
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
DR. NAVARRO: And it’s a beautiful thing to watch. I’m so honored and privileged to be able to be part – some small part of that, Maria.
BARTIROMO: Peter, I know that you’ve done so much work on all of this, and you’ve also written about Jay Powell. Real quick, before you go, do you think we’re gonna know who the President wants in the seat for chairman of the Fed before the end of the year? I know Powell’s term’s not up until May, but when are we gonna know who the President puts in there?
DR. NAVARRO: What we know is that Powell, in his obstinance cost this country a third of a trillion dollars yesterday with his behavior. It’s just unconscionable. The guy’s got to go one way or the other. Two people dissented.
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
DR. NAVARRO: First time since 1993 on the Fed.
BARTIROMO: That’s right.
DR. NAVARRO: At least we’re making a little progress. If they don’t lower in September, I can’t imagine that.
BARTIROMO: Well, I mean, that was two dissenters, Miki Bowman and Christopher Waller. The President said we lose 350 billion dollars for every point –
DR. NAVARRO: Yeah.
BARTIROMO: – that the Fed is not cutting rates –
DR. NAVARRO: Yep.
BARTIROMO: – because that’s the cost of the interest on the debt. Peter, great to see you, as always. Thank you, sir.
DR. NAVARRO: Take care, Maria. Always a pleasure.
BARTIROMO: Peter Navarro joining us.
DR. NAVARRO: Bye bye.
BARTIROMO: We’ll be right back.
