Trump Taps Peter Navarro as Trade Counselor
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President-elect Donald Trump tapped Peter Navarro as his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, elevating the formerly incarcerated adviser back to a role similar to the one he played in the previous Trump administration.
“During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American,” Trump said on his Truth Social account. “His mission will be to help successfully advance and communicate the Trump Manufacturing, Tariff, and Trade Agenda.”
The decision to tap Navarro fits a pattern of Trump choosing loyal allies for key administration posts. It also sets up a potential clash with Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, who Trump has said will also lead the administration’s tariff and trade agenda. Trump also nominated Jamieson Greer as his trade representative with a similar portfolio.
As Trump’s trade adviser, Navarro played a central role in the administration’s aggressive trade stance toward China, implementing stiff tariffs and, at times, heightening tensions between the two global powers. He co-authored a 2011 book, “Death by China: Confronting the Dragon,” that accused the country of unfair trade practices and warned about the economic threat that the nation posed to the US.
🚨 President Trump announces that @RealPNavarro will serve as his Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing! pic.twitter.com/HP7hXbYHeX — Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) December 4, 2024
Navarro was released from a four-month federal prison sentence in July, where he served after being found guilty on one count in contempt of Congress. He refused to comply with a subpoena to testify and provide documents to a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Navarro, 75, traveled straight from prison to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where he accused Democrats of orchestrating his jail term. “If they can come for me, if they can come for Donald Trump, careful. They will come for you,” Navarro said at the convention.
Navarro was also supportive of a forced sale or ban of video-sharing platform TikTok that’s owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd. Trump tried to ban TikTok through an executive order during his last presidency but has now suggested he opposes a ban.
Navarro was sanctioned by China in 2021, putting him on a black list alongside roughly two dozen other Trump allies. The Foreign Ministry said that the officials promoted and executed moves that undermined the country’s interests and disrupted U.S.-China relations.
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Trump also selected Michael Whatley, whom he appointed to be chair of the Republican Party in March, to return to the post. Whatley previously ran North Carolina’s Republican Party and led the party’s election integrity efforts alongside his co-chair Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law.
“Republicans everywhere should support him as he continues his mission at the RNC,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Trump also nominated Daniel P. Driscoll, another North Carolina native, to serve as the Secretary of the Army. Driscoll, an investor, army veteran and a Yale Law School alum, previously ran for the U.S. House but lost in the Republican primary in 2020.
