Name: Senior Trump adviser claims tariffs will help Americans
Uploaded: 2025-03-12T00:24:12.476Z
Duration: 4 min 34 s
Description: CNN’s Jake Tapper talks with Peter Navarro, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, about the state of the economy amidst a slumping stock market.

CNN’s Jake Tapper talks with Peter Navarro, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, about the state of the economy amidst a slumping stock market.

Washington

Donald Trump has signed an order to impose tariffs imports into the U.S. from countries including China, Mexico and Canada.

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Peter Navarro, a senior adviser to former President Donald Trump, has advocated for tariffs as a method to strengthen the U.S. economy. Speaking with CNN's Jake Tapper, Navarro emphasized the role of tariffs in stimulating domestic production and enhancing productivity. He asserted that these measures are aligned with the administration's economic policies, labeled 'Trumponomics,' which aim to create price stability, counteracting what Navarro characterized as inflation spurred by the policies of President Joe Biden.

Navarro pointed to the impact of tariffs on the steel and aluminum industries as evidence of their efficacy, citing a rise in capacity utilization and investment following the imposition of tariffs. He acknowledged concerns about market instability related to tariff threats but maintained that the long-term benefits of increased productivity and job creation would outweigh any immediate disruptions.

Despite uncertainty in the stock market and fluctuating prices, Navarro argued that factors such as lower mortgage and gasoline prices would lead to a positive deflationary effect. He suggested that recent initiatives, including deregulation and fraud reduction efforts, would further bolster the economy. However, Navarro pointed out that media narratives about potential recessions and inflation could exacerbate economic anxieties.



Senior Trump adviser claims tariffs will help Americans

We have a situation where we've shown that the Trumponomics work to create price stability. In Bidenomics, they created inflation. The difference is this. Bidenomics was basically an over-stimulus in a Keynesian way designed to over-stimulate the economy. Because there was so much money that went into the economy after COVID, et cetera. Too much money chasing too free goods. Prices aren't going down, though, Peter. But hang on. Let me show you what the transition is, and I'll show you why things are good. And by the way, mortgage rates have come down, and gasoline prices have already come down, as well as oil prices. And those two things alone will bring the overall core down. But in this transition- But the stock market's going down. Well, let's take them one at a time. We have what I call the 3D, the three-dimensional attack on inflation, which is consistent with the first term. In this case, it's drill, baby, drill. The difference between $80 barrel oil and $50 barrel oil is at least one point alone on the CPI. That alone is not just oil that we use in heating and putting in our cars. It spreads throughout the production aspects of the economy. So we're doing drill, baby, drill. We've got the deregulation now, which brings things down, and the doge to the extent that it gets rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. So we're going to see a tremendous deflationary positive effect that won't take us down. When do you think that's going to happen? Because as you know, there are a lot of companies, and there are a lot of Americans concerned that the tariffs, especially threat of tariff, take it back, threat of tariff, take it back, is creating instability in the market. So let's take them one at a time. So I've told you 3D, that's our broad Trumponomics. Now, with respect to the inflation we have today and how we're going to handle that, what happens when we place tariffs on? The whole endgame of tariffs is to bring production jobs here, which will increase productivity, real wages, give people more purchasing power and more prosperity. But how long will that take? Because that's a multi-year program. It's already beginning, because we've already had almost $2 trillion in pledged investments. Remember, the steel and aluminum tariffs went into effect today. Remember the last time that happened, we had $15 billion of investment in the steel industry alone in prosperity. My point here- You're talking about the 25% tariff on Canada's steel and aluminum, which is still on track to take place tonight. And I'm talking about the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum for the world. In other words, South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Turkey, China, New Zealand, Australia, all of that that's come in. The whole point of the steel and aluminum tariffs, let's just talk strategically about that, because there's different strategies for each kinds of tariffs. National security, as the president has said, we can't have a country defendable without a solid steel and aluminum industry. In the first term, we put them on in 2018. Steel was at 70% capacity utilization. In other words, 30% of their factories weren't working. That's not profitable. Our target was 80%. We got there. And what happened during the Biden administration was over 300,000 product exclusions. And virtually every country got some kind of exemption from that. And it took us back down. So those go back on. Now, those had zero effect on inflation, zero. And what we got was a strong steel and aluminum industry. So the thing here, it's so interesting. How long is this period of disruption, as President Trump calls it, how long is this going to last? Because there are a lot of Americans who are worried. They say, we voted for Trump to bring prices down. And prices are not going down. In some cases, they're going up. And there is loss of wealth in the market. Now, maybe that will return. But that's what's going on right now. And there are a lot of unsettled people. Sure. Let's first of all put this marker down. To the extent that the media fuels the recession, inflation kind of talk, that's going to push us into recession and inflation. President Trump is the one that said that he couldn't rule it out, not me. Let me just finish the thought here. My point is simply that there's a lot of people's hair on fire now, which is interesting because the last jobs report we got on Friday was robust. It was a robust report. It was like $150,000. Yeah. That's a good number.

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