Peter Navarro: Former professor, questionable scholar, and India detractor having his way
Despite Navarro's misgivings about China, the Trump administration has adopted a softer stance, which is not the case with India.
- Aug 29, 2025,
- Updated Aug 29, 2025 3:15 PM IST
Before White House adviser Peter Navarro trained his guns on India, his target was China, who he blamed for eating away all the jobs in the US. And before all that he was a Democrat who believed and taught liberal economics. The why and how he transformed into someone who a frustrated Elon Musk famously called “dumber than a brick” remains a bit obfuscated. But the former professor blamed China for his students’ failure to hold on to jobs, and that's perhaps how his protectionist views emerged.
Although there were signs of his animosity towards India – even though he has only recently been very vocal – in Trump’s approach to tariffs, and especially towards Indian tariffs. When Trump floated the idea of reciprocal tariffs earlier this year, he had repeatedly indicated that India was a key violator to what they perceived as fair tariffs. They had issues with India’s measures and policies to safeguard its own industry as well as labour-intensive sectors because they wanted to do the same for their own.
In the United States Trade Representative’s report on foreign trade barriers released earlier this year, the Trump administration gave a lowdown of the issues they had with tariff and import policies by India. That the tariffs were higher than the US would have liked was only part of their list of problems.
One of the issues they had mentioned in the report was that “obtaining an import license for remanufactured goods is onerous” and that excessive details are required in the import licence application form. The complex customs system, extensive inspection of items, prohibition of ethanol imports, the Bureau of India Standards (BIS) standards which according to them do not comply with international standards are just some of the “barriers” they listed.
The fact that the US-India trade deal was held up by the dairy and agriculture sectors also had indications in the report. “India requires that dairy products intended for food be derived from animals that have not consumed feeds containing internal organs, blood meal, or tissues of ruminant or porcine origin and that exporting countries certify to these conditions, which lack a discernable animal health or human health justification. This requirement, along with the recent dairy health certificate requirements, new facility registration requirements, and high tariff rates, continues to hamper market access for US milk and dairy product exports to India, one of the largest dairy markets in the world. The US Government continues to press the Indian Government, including through the TPF, to provide greater access to the Indian dairy market,” it had said.
While in the realm of trade, a lot of these issues revolved around India’s policies and measures to safeguard the livelihoods of its citizens as well as industries. What Trump and co sought were not a mere rejig of tariff brackets, but also an overhaul of New Delhi’s policies.
The influence of Navarro in such strong-arming is as clear as day.
Navarro has been a close aide of Trump. Such is his fanatic revering of Trump that he was jailed for it. After Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in 2020, Navarro aided Trump’s attempts to overturn the results. Once the investigations began on fraud and election irregularities, Navarro refused multiple subpoenas, which led him to jail for four months. In the second term, Navarro has been vindicated somehow, leading him to an advisory role, and Trump’s ear.
Knowing his history, Navarro’s tirade against India is not likely to stop soon. In 2011, when he had written his book titled Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – A Global Call to Action with Greg Autry, so hell bent was he to pin the blame on China to suit his arguments that he created a fictional expert, Ron Vara – an anagram of his name, Navarro. According to an NYT report, Navarro had cited Ron Vara in six of his books to put across pro-tariff arguments.
As per the report, in 2019 when Trump was negotiating with China to see if the countries could avoid additional tariffs altogether, Navarro went and published a memo offering a defence of the tariffs under the name of Ron Vara.
Despite his misgivings about China, the Trump administration has adopted a softer stance, which is not the case with India. With Trump’s hardline and critical view of India, and Navarro’s undeterred diatribe, it remains to be seen if the goodwill between both the nations is as resistant as envisaged.
Before White House adviser Peter Navarro trained his guns on India, his target was China, who he blamed for eating away all the jobs in the US. And before all that he was a Democrat who believed and taught liberal economics. The why and how he transformed into someone who a frustrated Elon Musk famously called “dumber than a brick” remains a bit obfuscated. But the former professor blamed China for his students’ failure to hold on to jobs, and that's perhaps how his protectionist views emerged.
Although there were signs of his animosity towards India – even though he has only recently been very vocal – in Trump’s approach to tariffs, and especially towards Indian tariffs. When Trump floated the idea of reciprocal tariffs earlier this year, he had repeatedly indicated that India was a key violator to what they perceived as fair tariffs. They had issues with India’s measures and policies to safeguard its own industry as well as labour-intensive sectors because they wanted to do the same for their own.
In the United States Trade Representative’s report on foreign trade barriers released earlier this year, the Trump administration gave a lowdown of the issues they had with tariff and import policies by India. That the tariffs were higher than the US would have liked was only part of their list of problems.
One of the issues they had mentioned in the report was that “obtaining an import license for remanufactured goods is onerous” and that excessive details are required in the import licence application form. The complex customs system, extensive inspection of items, prohibition of ethanol imports, the Bureau of India Standards (BIS) standards which according to them do not comply with international standards are just some of the “barriers” they listed.
The fact that the US-India trade deal was held up by the dairy and agriculture sectors also had indications in the report. “India requires that dairy products intended for food be derived from animals that have not consumed feeds containing internal organs, blood meal, or tissues of ruminant or porcine origin and that exporting countries certify to these conditions, which lack a discernable animal health or human health justification. This requirement, along with the recent dairy health certificate requirements, new facility registration requirements, and high tariff rates, continues to hamper market access for US milk and dairy product exports to India, one of the largest dairy markets in the world. The US Government continues to press the Indian Government, including through the TPF, to provide greater access to the Indian dairy market,” it had said.
While in the realm of trade, a lot of these issues revolved around India’s policies and measures to safeguard the livelihoods of its citizens as well as industries. What Trump and co sought were not a mere rejig of tariff brackets, but also an overhaul of New Delhi’s policies.
The influence of Navarro in such strong-arming is as clear as day.
Navarro has been a close aide of Trump. Such is his fanatic revering of Trump that he was jailed for it. After Trump lost the election to Joe Biden in 2020, Navarro aided Trump’s attempts to overturn the results. Once the investigations began on fraud and election irregularities, Navarro refused multiple subpoenas, which led him to jail for four months. In the second term, Navarro has been vindicated somehow, leading him to an advisory role, and Trump’s ear.
Knowing his history, Navarro’s tirade against India is not likely to stop soon. In 2011, when he had written his book titled Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – A Global Call to Action with Greg Autry, so hell bent was he to pin the blame on China to suit his arguments that he created a fictional expert, Ron Vara – an anagram of his name, Navarro. According to an NYT report, Navarro had cited Ron Vara in six of his books to put across pro-tariff arguments.
As per the report, in 2019 when Trump was negotiating with China to see if the countries could avoid additional tariffs altogether, Navarro went and published a memo offering a defence of the tariffs under the name of Ron Vara.
Despite his misgivings about China, the Trump administration has adopted a softer stance, which is not the case with India. With Trump’s hardline and critical view of India, and Navarro’s undeterred diatribe, it remains to be seen if the goodwill between both the nations is as resistant as envisaged.