Features

Trump taps former adviser Navarro for key trade, manufacturing role

December 4, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump has announced that Peter Navarro will serve as his senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.

“During my First Term, few were more effective or tenacious than Peter in enforcing my two sacred rules, Buy American, Hire American,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday.

“He helped me renegotiate unfair Trade Deals like NAFTA and the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS), and moved every one of my Tariff and Trade actions FAST,” Trump added.

In the first Trump administration, Navarro served as director of the White House National Trade Council, among other related roles.

He recently spent four months in prison for being held in contempt of Congress. Navarro refused to cooperate with a subpoena from the House committee investigating what occurred on Jan. 6 in Washington.

Regarding this, Trump said Navarro “was treated horribly by the Deep State, or whatever else you would like to call it.”

Navarro was a professor of economics and public policy at the University of California at Irvine, where he is now professor emeritus.

Lighthizer out?

With Navarro’s appointment, it looks as if another official from the first Trump administration, Robert Lighthizer, likely won’t be joining for the second.

The former US Trade Representative, and a key player in the tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum in Trump 1.0, had hoped for two Cabinet posts, Treasury or Commerce secretary, according to a Dec. 3 article in Politico. Those nominees have both been announced.

For 2.0, Trump nominated hedge fund executive Scott Bessent for Treasury secretary and Wall Street veteran Howard Lutnick for Commerce secretary.

The article, citing sources familiar with the matter, said Lighthizer was unlikely to accept a “lesser” post such as “trade czar.”

Ethan Bernard

Ethan Bernard is managing editor for Steel Market Update. He previously worked for American Metal Market as a copy editor in the New York office for two years, starting in 2008. Later, he copy edited AMM’s monthly magazine on a freelance basis from 2015 until 2017. With experience in financial copywriting and textbook publishing, he holds a BA in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, and an MFA. in Creative Writing from New York University. He can be reached at ethan@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7871.