46 TIME September 3–10, 2018
Economy
county board in 1994, losing both races.
Undeterred, he ran for oice again in
1996, this time for a seat in the House of
Representatives held by Brian Bilbray,
a irst-term Republican swept into
oice by the Newt Gingrich revolution.
Opposition to Gingrich—who is today a
major Trump ally—was the poll-tested
theme of Navarro’s campaign. He decried
Gingrich’s agenda, which he described
as “anti-choice, anti-environment, anti–
working people and anti-Medicare,” and
his slogan wasTHE DEMOCRAT NEWT
GINGRICH FEARS MOST!
Navarro got a three-minute speaking
slot at the 1996 Democratic convention in
Chicago. President Bill Clinton, the First
Lady and Vice President Al Gore all came
to California to fundraise and campaign
for him. In a memoir, Navarro singled
out “street-smart, savvy” Nancy Pelosi
for praise, but Hillary was his favorite:
“gracious, intelligent, perceptive, and,
yes, classy,” he called her, expressing
puzzlement that many Americans seemed
to hate her. “Okay, so... this uppity
woman has made it all too clear to Middle
America that she’d rather be an activist
irst lady than rearrange White House
furniture,” he wrote. “But so what? This
is the dawn of the 21st Century.”
Navarro lost by 11 points. The cam-
paign left him ruined and embittered:
his wife, discomited by public life, had
divorced him, and he was deep in debt.
Looking around, he saw plenty of people
responsible for his defeat, from Bill Clin-
ton to the local media to dirty campaign
tricks to the “poorly informed voters who
ultimately determine elections.” His book
San Diego Conidential named names
and spewed insults. But he knew he bore
some of the blame. In focus groups, vot-
ers found him harsh, arrogant and angry.
“It’s like everything is a war with him,”
one woman said. It was his personality,
not his policies, that turned of voters,
says Remer, who is puzzled by Navarro’s
current position. “The Peter I knew,” he
says, “would have had to swallow a lot to
do what he’s doing with Trump.”
SO WHAT HAPPENED to Peter Navarro,
liberal warrior? In the ensuing decades, he
would make one more unsuccessful run for
elected oice, losing a 2001 campaign for
San Diego city council. He was a supporter
of Democratic politicians as recently as
and 2015’sCrouching Tiger. Death by
Chinawas made into a documentary nar-
rated by Martin Sheen. And it attracted
the attention of then businessman
Trump. “I urge you to see it,” he wrote
in a promotional blurb. When Trump ran
for President, Navarro heard a politician
willing to take on the evils of globalism,
foreign inluence and China—someone
who, like Navarro, was convinced Amer-
ica was getting screwed.
Most economists disagree with this
view. They agree that China’s entry
into the WTO led to a period of “China
shock” for the U.S. economy as a lood
of cheap imports displaced American
goods such as clothing, furniture, toys and
electronics, leading to a sharp decline in
manufacturing jobs. But experts generally
believe that the shock wore of and trade
with China has been a net beneit to the
U.S. for the past decade or so, lowering
consumer prices and opening a huge new
market to American companies. Many
agree with Navarro that China’s state-
managed economy engages in unfair
practices. But virtually no economists
believe tarifs are the solution. “It’s a
trillion-dollar coin toss,” says Douglas
Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist
and former director of the Congressional
Budget Oice. “It’s a very risky approach.”2008, when he backed Hillary Clinton in
the presidential primary. In op-eds and
newsletters in the past decade, he called
for an aggressive climate policy, including
a carbon tax and a ban on incandescent
bulbs, and supported a stimulus package
to combat the inancial crisis.
But on trade, his views evolved. In
1998, he had written that he “strongly
supported free trade.” But after China
joined the World Trade Organization
(WTO) in 2001, he started to notice that
his MBA students were losing their jobs
despite their sterling qualiications. He
concluded that China’s trade practices—
including export and production subsi-
dies, currency manipulation and theft
of intellectual property—were put-
ting Americans at an unfair disadvan-
tage. In other words, Navarro seemed to
see in China a scapegoat for people like
himself: well-credentialed Americans
denied access to the success they felt
they’d earned.
He wrote his irst book on the phe-
nomenon,The Coming China Wars, in
2006, followed by 2011’sDeath by China△
Hillary Clinton campaigned for
Navarro in 1996, the year he ran for
Congress as a progressive DemocratPREVIOUS PAGES: THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX; JOHN GASTALDO—TNS/ZUMA