“It looks like maybe his true colors have come out.”After his political career sputtered, Mr. Navarro continued teaching and writing books about business and investing. But before long, his attention turned to China and its trade practices, which many left-leaning Democrats, including labor leaders, believed were killing American jobs. Mr. Navarro’s skepticism first emerged in the 1970s while he was a Peace Corps volunteer building and repairing fish ponds in Thailand. He became increasingly critical of how China’s trade practices were impacting the United States after its admission to the World Trade Organization in 2001, particularly as many of his business students complained of losing their jobs as a result of Chinese competition. Mr. Navarro joined the campaign as an economic adviser in 2016 and quickly gained the trust of Mr. Trump, who refers to Mr. Navarro as “my tough guy on China.”“My whole philosophy in life and in this job is the Gretzky perspective — skate to where the puck is going to be, anticipate problems that the president is going to want to solve, and get on them,” Mr. Navarro said in an interview.

Source: New York Times December 26, 2019 16:50 UTC