Peter Navarro: Controversy's child and MAGA's economic crusader
Peter Navarro has never been mistaken for a consensus builder. A Harvard-trained economist turned economic street-fighter, he’s made a career out of picking fights against markets, against allies, and often, against reality.
Once a fringe academic raging against globalisation, Navarro is now cemented in Donald Trump’s second-term White House as both trusted warrior and ideological bulldozer.
While China has long been Navarro’s chosen villain, he’s now training his firepower on a new target, India.
And he’s gone nuclear. In recent weeks, he’s accused New Delhi of financing Vladimir Putin’s “war,” calling India the “Maharaja of tariffs” and a “laundromat for the Kremlin.” He alleges that India’s continued Russian oil imports are propping up the war machine in Ukraine and shifting the financial burden onto American taxpayers. “This isn’t neutrality,” Navarro said. “It’s war profiteering under another name.”
India’s trade policy, according to Navarro, is a double insult: sky-high tariffs on US. goods combined with opportunistic profiteering from discounted Russian oil. “They cheat us on trade,” he said. “They have massive tariffs and still expect access to our markets.” In Navarro’s world, that makes India a threat. Diplomats squirmed. MAGA loyalists cheered. This is Navarro unleashed, abrasive, ideological, and exactly where Trump wants him.
Navarro’s unlikely rise into Trump’s inner circle reads like political folklore. In 2011, he noticed his book ‘The Coming China Wars’ listed on a blog as one of Trump’s favorite reads. He sent a thank-you note. Trump replied. The correspondence kicked off a years-long courtship. By 2016, Jared Kushner brought him into the campaign after reading ‘Death by China’. From there, Navarro became the brain behind Trump’s tariff crusade.
During Trump’s first term, Navarro was both everywhere and nowhere-constantly in the room, yet always a target. Treasury secretaries, economists, and chiefs of staff all tried to marginalise him. They failed.
Trump didn’t care if Navarro was right or wrong. He cared that Navarro never stopped swinging. And fight he did. Against free trade. Against allies. Against mainstream economic orthodoxy. When headlines softened Trump’s image on tariffs, Navarro would go on television and torch any notion of compromise.
That loyalty deepened after the 2020 election. Navarro aggressively pushed the “Green Bay Sweep,” a fantasy plan to overturn the results. When subpoenaed by Congress, he refused to comply and was convicted of contempt.
He served time in a Florida federal prison. Trump wasn’t bothered. “He went to jail for me,” Trump reportedly said.
Even behind bars, Navarro stayed on mission. He used the time to write The New MAGA Deal, a sweeping economic playbook for Trump’s return. The book outlines an “iron triangle” of protectionism, industrial revival, and nationalist foreign policy. India features heavily as a supposed saboteur of American interests.
Why target India and not China, which imports more Russian oil? Peter Navarro has an answer: “We already have over 50% tariffs on China. We don’t want to hurt ourselves.” Critics call it selective outrage, while others see it as ideological scapegoating as Washington is getting cautious about going all out against China.
Navarro’s views, once dismissed as fringe, have evolved into Trump-era policy. His apocalyptic books and bizarre academic ethics—like citing a fictional trade expert, “Ron Vara” (an anagram of himself) raised eyebrows. But Navarro thrives on carefully chosen chaos. Now 75, he’s relentless, roaming the White House in gym clothes, always scheming.
His focus on India isn’t incidental. Navarro believes India’s actions prolong war, not peace, and that profit drives their oil imports. Whether his scorched-earth tactics will shift US trade policy or alienate India remains to be seen, but for now, his target is clear.