Fierce China critic Peter Navarro to head Trump's trade office
WASHINGTON _ President-elect Donald Trump is establishing a new White House-based trade office that will be headed by a University of California, Irvine professor known for his fierce criticisms of Chinese trade and economic practices.
In appointing Peter Navarro as director of trade and industrial policy and the head of the new National Trade Council inside the White House, Trump is signaling that he wants to follow through on his tough campaign rhetoric in which he blamed the Chinese for the large U.S. trade deficit and manufacturing woes.
During the campaign, Trump threatened to slap a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports.
Navarro, a Harvard-trained economist who advised Trump during the campaign, is the author of the book "Death by China: Confronting the Dragon _ a Global Call to Action." Trump endorsed the 2011 book as well as Navarro's film version of the polemical work.
Trump said the new trade office would develop policies to shrink the nation's trade deficit and curb the off-shoring of jobs, as well as to lead initiatives such as the "Buy America, Hire America" program.
Navarro, in a statement, said he would be honored to serve Trump and the nation and "to advise on policies to re-balance our trade, rebuild our industrial base, and restore America's comprehensive national power by making America great again."
_Tribune Washington Bureau
