Edited version first posted on
Asia Times.
Why would a Harvard PhD
economist and tenured college professor make a public ass of himself with
ridiculous assertions about China that no self-respecting economist would claim
ownership?
I posed the question to
Professor John Graham, Peter Navarro’s colleague at University of California at
Irvine Merage School of Business. He joined the faculty in 1989, the same year
as Navarro. Now that Navarro has left to join the Trump Administration, Graham has
taken over the course Navarro started on China.
“I am not sure I know why,”
Graham said, “In sum, the three books he’s written about China are xenophobic
trash. They contain some truths, but Navarro cherry picks the data to prove his
points. Ultimately it’s nothing but
yellow journalism.”
He goes on to say, “Navarro
has no first hand familiarity of China, doesn’t show any understanding of China
and doesn’t speak Chinese. When asked how many times he’s been to China, he
evades and doesn’t answer.”
A former UCI professor and
colleague confirmed saying, “He generally avoided people who actually knew
something about the country.”
Needed help to teach a course on China
After publishing several
China-related books, Navarro decided to create his own China relations
course, named "China and the Global Order." When Benjamin Leffel, a
China specialist and Sociology Ph.D. student at UC Irvine, became aware of
Navarro's writings, he reached out to Navarro and questioned his views.
The meeting led to
Navarro asking Leffel to act as the counterweight in his China class. Leffel
created most of the syllabus using respected academic material in China
studies, Navarro's contribution being his own book and documentary.
Leffel wanted to
throw out Navarro's materials, but Navarro did not agree. (After Navarro joined
the Trump Administration, Leffel and Graham discarded his material from the
syllabus.) Despite such a frontal disagreement, Navarro kept Leffel as his
instructor and teaching assistant, who in fact did most of the teaching--and
who exhaustively corrected the falsehoods and exaggerations found in Navarro's
material.
How would he
summarize his experience working with Navarro, I asked Leffel. He said,
"it was a tense but successful exercise in working with someone with
radically different views, something we need now more than ever.”
Graham speculated that
perhaps Navarro was motivated by TV exposure; his books and video documentary
were calculated to get him media attention. That was an insightful observation.
Navarro, a Gordon Chang wannabe?
Indeed, Navarro may have
taken a page from Gordon Chang’s playbook. Chang published the “Coming Collapse
of China” in 2001. In view of China quadrupling the size of its economy since
that publication, Chang should have eggs all over his face.
Instead Navarro can see that
his friend became a media darling and is frequently interviewed about his views
on China. The so called fake news people, those we would otherwise consider as
mainstream media, know that they can always count on Chang to give a colorful
and negative point of view about China.
Navarro has taken China
bashing as the road to success to another level. He writes better than Chang,
is more telegenic and has resources to tap that are not available to Chang.
Nucor Foundation gave him a $1 million to turn his book into a documentary,
which he then premiered from coast to coast.
Chang attended those premiers
and celebrated with selfies taken with Navarro. Sometime between Chang’s book
in 2001 and Navarro’s “Death by China” in 2011, they have become fast friends.
To celebrate their friendship,
Navarro even wrote an article in defense of Chang called, “Revenge of
Gordon Chang and the Coming Collapse of China.” The piece also appeared in National Interest on May 7, 2016.
When it comes to China, Navarro
is not driven by facts and has no desire to write with authenticity and
scholarship. To my knowledge, none of his papers on China have been published
in peer reviewed, prestigious academic or professional journals.
He coauthored with Wilbur Ross
an economic plan for the incoming Trump Administration. A public letter from
370 economists, including 19 Nobel laureates, labeled the plan “as immediate
and unmitigated disaster.”
Despite such condemnation,
Navarro now stands as the key economic whisperer to President Trump.
A five times loser in politics
In his earlier life, Navarro
ran unsuccessfully for political office. He came within a whisker of becoming
the mayor of San Diego, the second largest city of California. That was his
first attempt running for public office and led the primary field with 38.2% of
the votes.
In the general election
runoff, it was his election to lose, and lose he did. He was nasty and vicious
in attacking his opponent, Susan Golding, reducing her to tears in the last
televised debate. The voters turned against Navarro.
He was to run for various
offices in San Diego four more times. Each time his campaign tactic was nastier
than the previous. Mudslinging was his standard procedure. Even his campaign
manager called him a scoundrel.
When Navarro was first
announced as joining the Trump Administration, San Diego Union Tribune, the local newspaper published a pointedly
hostile review of his past association with the city (12/21/16).
The headline read, “How many elections did Navarro lose?”
Charlie Cook, a nationally
recognized political analyst, met Navarro once and vividly remembers that
Navarro is one of the most obnoxious political candidates he has ever met. (Politico,
3/11/17)
In one election post mortem,
Navarro admitted, “I don’t have any concerns at all about making stuff up about
my opponent that isn’t exactly true.”
When asked why he began to
pay attention to China. His reply was that it was when he noticed some of his
students were losing jobs to China. Factory workers might lose jobs when plants
shut down but MBA students don’t lose jobs to China. Nice try, Peter.
The public media is in part
responsible for enabling a 5 time political loser to join the inner sanctum of
Trump’s White House. When Navarro spouts nonsense, it’s the responsibility of
the media to challenge his assertions and not give him a pass.
Now Navarro will be part of the
team steering the US economic policy. It’s too early to tell whether he will be
a mere transitory blip in history or an unmitigated disaster feared by many. If
Trump really listens to him, only the Almighty can save us. Trump has just
announced $60 billion worth of tariff duty on goods from China. That’s not an
encouraging development.