Archive - November 18, 2018

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Andy Trincia (Romania 2002-04) Peter Navarro—a business-school professor, a get-rich guru, a former Peace Corps member, and a former Democrat—is among the most important generals in Trump’s trade war. MATTHIEU BOUREL by ANNIE LOWREY DECEMBER 2018 ISSUE of The Atlantic “No one’s more careful about what they buy,” Peter Navarro (Thailand 1972-75) told me recently. The director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy was explaining that he reads labels closely and avoids products made in China. “People need to be mindful of the high cost of low prices,” he said. In Navarro’s telling, those cheap flip-flops are supporting an authoritarian state, and that cut-rate washing machine might be mortgaging America’s future. Such wariness of foreign goods is not just one man’s consumer preference—it’s United States policy. In the past year, the Trump administration has embarked on a trade war with sweeping geopolitical aims: . . .