TRANSCRIPT

                         April 11, 2025

                          NEWS PROGRAM

                                

PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR FOR TRADE AND MANUFACTURING 

                                

                                

                                

   FBN INTERVIEW WITH PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR FOR
                      TRADE AND MANUFACTURING 

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     FBN INTERVIEW WITH PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR FOR
     TRADE AND MANUFACTURING 

     APRIL 11, 2025

     SPEAKERS:
     PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE COUNSELOR FOR TRADE AND
     MANUFACTURING

     MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN ANCHOR

BARTIROMO: Joining me now is White House Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing, Peter Navarro. Peter, it's great to see you this morning. Thanks so much for joining me.

PETER NAVARRO, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR COUNSELOR FOR TRADE AND

MANUFACTURING: Great -- great to be with you, Maria.

BARTIROMO: I want to get your take on these deals that President Trump is doing and that you and your team are doing, but first, give us your reaction to now, you know Xi Jinping, you know thumping that chest saying, Oh yeah, you going there. We're going here. 125 percent on U.S. goods. How impactful is this going to be?

NAVARRO: I love it. I'm going to talk a lot about China. Let me just say, 90 deals in 90 days. Biggest, broadest tax cut in American history, should be driving the tape. That's what's going to be, a bullish market. And if you're not long, you're going to get left behind. Now China, let's talk a little bit about China.

The President has said several times now that he would love to hear from China to talk about where we're at, and here's where we're at, Maria. From our perspective, China has killed over a million Americans with deadly fentanyl and related drugs, and it simply refuses to do anything about that. Many of these people are prime age workers, so they not only kill Americans, they're killing our workforce. At the same time as you know, Maria. And we talk a lot about this, since 2001, China has destroyed over 60,000 American factories and stolen over 5 million manufacturing jobs, that's the state of play.

So all we're asking for is fairness. Now, from the Chinese point of view, let me see if we can go there. Let's suppose that I'm an advisor to President Xi, right now, what am I telling him? I'm telling him that the Americans have a very legitimate gripe and beef here. They're not attacking China unfairly. They're simply asking us to stop killing them and stop stealing their jobs with their various unfair trade practices. What we should do, Mr. Xi, again, I'm a Chinese adviser right now, is do what we should have done over a decade ago, is move towards a domestic dependent, a domestic consumption dependent economy, and lift our people out of prosperity, not just with wages, but to give them the wherewithal to actually buy stuff and that we should move to an accommodation and pick up the phone.

I would tell, tell President Xi, if I'm his adviser, like, look, we're a prisoner of our history. The British unfairly killed us with their opium, took our wealth, took our ports with these unequal treaties. But this is not that with the Americans. The Americans have a very legitimate beef with us, and we need to come to some kind of accommodation and pick up the phone. That's where they should go. Now that advisor would probably wind up immediately in a Chinese prison and therein lies the tale.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable. Peter, I know you have studied China a lot over your career. I remember years ago talking about the bad behavior of the CCP with you. How would you assess the Chinese economy today? In other words, the tariffs that President Trump is putting on the Chinese economy is going to have a much bigger impact, in my view, on the Chinese economy than the opposite in terms of what they are doing to us.

NAVARRO: You can't be a surplus economy, which China is running a massive trade surplus with us, and think you can possibly win moving up the escalatory ladder the rest of the world has gotten that message. I mean, if you think about the trade deficits we run with the EU, with Vietnam, with South Korea, with Japan, with India and others, Malaysia, Indonesia. If they -- if they tariff us at the same rate, they're hurting themselves far worse. And the same thing with China. They haven't -- China, I mean, again, I think they're a prisoner of their history. It's -- it's -- it's almost hubris, their -- their pride, going back to the Opium Wars.

BARTIROMO: You're right.

NAVARRO: But I would just simply say, this is not that, China. This is not that. You're killing Americans. You're taking our jobs, and the rest of the world is watching you.

BARTIROMO: That's right.

NAVARRO: Because it's not just America that you're hurting. You're hurting every -- you take from Latin America and Africa, all their natural resources.

BARTIROMO: Right.

NAVARRO: You dump goods into Europe, and that it's an unsustainable equilibrium. That's the bottom line. We got to a point, Maria, where the U.S. can't keep doing what it's doing. We're sending too much of our wealth abroad through the trade deficit and losing too many jobs, and we don't have the ability to defend ourselves --

BARTIROMO: Yeah.

NAVARRO: -- because we're losing our defense industrial base. And China can't keep dumping stuff on world markets, thinking that everybody is going to keep buying it. So they need to -- they need to take care of their own people. They need to let their own people be consumers, not just working their -- their slave -- slave labor sweatshops.

BARTIROMO: Well, they're going to -- they're going to get that if they haven't already. President Trump is not ruling out extending the 90-day pause on tariffs. Here's the President yesterday responding to Fox Business' Edward Lawrence. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EDWARD LAWRENCE, FOX BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: So how close are you to the first country coming to actually make a deal with the United States over tariffs? Is it days, months?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I think it's very close. But you know, we have to have a deal that we like. We don't want a deal that's going to be a bad deal. Or I could -- I could make every deal in one day if I wanted to.

REPORTER: China retaliated today by reducing the number of American films that can be shown there. What's your reaction to them now targeting cultural exports from the United States?

TRUMP: I think I've heard of worse things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: The President is so funny. I love that answer. But Australia's Deputy Prime Minister shut down China's offer to work together against Trump's tariffs, saying that they will not make common cause or hold hands, quote, unquote. Europe as well. You just mentioned Europe.

They signaled last night, after the close no partnership with China. They declined to accept China's re-routed, dumped goods into the United States. But Peter, you just mentioned a minute ago, 90 deals in 90 days. So can you give us an update, Peter?

NAVARRO: Yeah --

BARTIROMO: Where are we in terms of all these negotiations? Go ahead.

NAVARRO: I'd love to take you behind the scenes, Maria, because it's so different from the first term. Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative. He's got over 30 years of experience. He is a calm, kind person, but he is the toughest SOB in the world when it comes to trading. He is at the tip of the spear for the President, because he is the United States Trade Rep.

He has got a whole portion of our White House working day and night. We started working on these deals months ago, because we anticipate. That's what we do, we anticipate. So what's going to happen here is Jamieson Greer and Howard Lutnick are going to work very closely together. Howard, in addition to knowing the bond market better than anybody in the world, is also a great negotiator, so we're going to run 90 deals in 90 days. It's possible.

The boss is going to be the Chief Negotiator. Nothing is done without him looking very carefully at it. He has such a fine attention to detail. Scott Bessent is going to handle countries like Japan and South Korea, where there's a lot of currency issues associated with that.

BARTIROMO: Oh, that's good.

NAVARRO: And then you have Kevin Hassett, who you've had many times on your show, who is really, really good analytically, and also is also carrying the football with Scott on the tax policy, which is important part of our situation.

BARTIROMO: Yeah, very.

NAVARRO: Stephen Miller is doing a beautiful job, coordinating things, and JD Vance has just been a breath of fresh air.

BARTIROMO: OK.

NAVARRO: I knew Mike Pence well. I liked Mike, but Mike didn't know anything about policy, and he was -- he was hamstrung by this guy, Marc Short --

BARTIROMO: OK.

NAVARRO: -- who was his Chief of Staff, who destroyed Pence's career.

BARTIROMO: Oh wow.

NAVARRO: JD Vance gets it. JD Vance was at the -- at ground zero.

BARTIROMO: Yeah.

NAVARRO: Well, I was back in 2006 right in the coming China wars, JD Vance was -- I was up there, you know, looking down at the carnage. JD Vance was part of that carnage so he gets it. He's got a great Chief of Staff himself. I love Jake.

BARTIROMO: Well --

NAVARRO: So what I'm trying to signal, Maria is this -- this team is just -- just the best in history.

BARTIROMO: Yeah.

NAVARRO: And by the way, Marco Rubio, when we need stuff in terms of the interface with diplomacy, Doug Burgum, Chris Wright, when we're doing like LNG --

BARTIROMO: OK. Yeah, no, it's a great cabinet.

NAVARRO: -- deals from Alaska. So America should trust in Trump. The market should trust in Trump --

BARTIROMO: Right.

NAVARRO: -- and not get these -- these weak knees --

BARTIROMO: Well --

NAVARRO: -- because this is going to be bullish.

BARTIROMO: We had a good week this week. You know that I'm calling it the $5 trillion Jamie Dimon interview, because that huge move, the other day is so strong that we're still showing gains for the week, but let's face it. The stock market has lost trillions in market value over the last couple of weeks as there -- there's -- there was that unwinding in the bond market. Treasury Secretary Bessent was with me on Wednesday, addressing it. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY: There's one of these deleveraging convulsions that's going on right now the in the markets. And you know, I think it's in the fixed income market. There's some very large leverage players who are experiencing losses. They're having to deleverage. I believe that there is nothing systemic about this. I think that it is an uncomfortable but normal deleveraging that's going on in the bond market. And I expect that as we see the leverage come down, the risk managers tapping people on the shoulders, telling them to bring their books down, which is what happens every couple of years, as leverage builds up, then the market will calm down.

BARTIROMO: Is China dumping treasuries to try to put pressure on this -- this market?

BESSENT: Yeah, I think it works against their purposes, if they are dumping treasuries, because if they're dumping treasuries, and they have to buy something else, if they sell dollars, and they strengthen their currency, and as I said earlier, they've actually been weakening their currency, which is a loser for everyone.

BARTIROMO: Right.

BESSENT: And again, when I hear all these stories, the dollar is no longer going to be the reserve currency. You know, if you end up with the Chinese who are willing to use their currency as a trade tool, that doesn't seem like a very good reserve asset to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BARTIROMO: Yeah. Good -- good luck with that. If you want to use the yuan as your reserve currency. Peter, look, I want to get your take on the metrics that we should be focused on in this next 90 days, because the market really wants to hear deals. Would do you expect, I'm not sure how you can -- how much you can say here, but do you expect that the early deals, the big deals, will be Japan, South Korea and India? Are those going to be among the first?

NAVARRO: I'm not getting ahead of the boss. Don't get ahead of the boss.

BARTIROMO: OK.

NAVARRO: That's why I'm still here. But I can tell you we've had discussions with Australia, the UK, Israel and Japan, South Korea, and there's others that I don't know about. There's a lot of wisdom in what Scott Bessent said. But look, there's been a lot of derisking already. There's a lot of cash on the sidelines.

BARTIROMO: Yeah.

NAVARRO: And I would note, is kind of ironic. Jamie Dimon, while he's wringing his hands about all this, his firm made out like bandits trading on the volatility, and that's the concern here. The small investor needs to just sit tight, not panic, and don't let these big firms shake you out, because I'd rather have Mom and Pop have a solid portfolio --

BARTIROMO: Yeah.

NAVARRO: -- than Jamie Dimon have another billion dollars.

BARTIROMO: Well, you said it the other day. If you don't sell, you're not down, right? I mean you just said that the other day.

NAVARRO: If you don't sell, you don't lose.

BARTIROMO: I'd say it's right. Peter is right there. Peter, it's great to see you, sir. Thank you.

NAVARRO: Nice to see you. Maria, thank you for the time.

END