Trump's Tariff Ideologist Is a Fake Economist Who Never Existed

The head of the new US administration's Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy invented a non-existent economist who preached about the benefits of a "tariff war." How the fake character became the ideologist of the new economic policy is told NPR и The Wrap.

Photo: Rochu2008 | Dreamstime.com

Peter Navarro, who heads the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, supports Trump's "tariff war" idea. He cites a certain economist named Ron Vara. But Vara is a fictional character. How did a non-existent person become the ideologist of the White House's economic policy?

A character named Ron Vara was quoted in Navarro's 2011 book, Death by China, warning against Chinese imports.
"Only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath, a baby's crib into a deadly weapon, and a phone battery into a splinter that pierces the heart," Vara is quoted as saying.

But although the book is not considered a work of fiction, Vara is a fictional character.

Solving the Anagram and a "Funny Joke"

"Ron Vara is an anagram of the last name Navarro," said journalist Tom Bartlett.

Since 2001, Vara has appeared in about half a dozen of Navarro's books.

Navarro, who now heads the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, defended the fictional character, calling it a "joke."

"Never has this character been used incorrectly as a source of facts," he wrote in an email. "It's just a funny device."

Bartlett became interested in Vara after being pointed out by Tessa Morris-Suzuki, a professor at the Australian National University.

"She's an Asia specialist and was working on an essay about Peter Navarro's rather harsh rhetoric toward China," Bartlett explained.

Although one book describes Vara as a Harvard graduate student—like Navarro himself—the university found no record of him.

Eventually, Greg Autry, co-writer of Death by China, admitted that the character was created by Navarro.

"It's funny that someone finally figured out a joke that's been hiding in plain sight for years," Navarro wrote.

But former White House economist Glenn Hubbard, co-author of another book that also features Vara, told Bartlett he was unaware of the joke—and was not amused.

Tessa Morris-Suzuki was not impressed either.

"As she put it, the joke quickly loses its punch when it comes to certain statements about China and the Chinese people that are quite negative," Bartlett said. "Ron Vara says things that are hardly funny."

Violation of publishing standards

Navarro's publisher, Prentice Hall, and its parent company, Pearson, also did not know the character was fictitious.

“Pearson has strict editorial standards that apply to all publications and authors,” said Scott Overland, the company’s chief communications officer. “We take any violations of these standards very seriously and take prompt action when they are discovered.”

Overland said Pearson plans to add a disclaimer to future printings stating that "Ron Vara is not a real person but a pseudonym created by Peter Navarro."

It's unlikely, however, that the episode will land Navarro in hot water with his boss. Donald Trump famously created a fictional press secretary named John Barron in the 1980s. Internet users are already joking that Barron could offer some PR advice to the recently exposed Vara.

Is a Fake Economist Ruining the Economy?

“You’d think it would take a big plan and a big brain to destroy the economy of the richest country on earth, but that’s not what’s happening,” TV host and political commentator Rachel Maddow said on her MSNBC show on the evening of April 4.

She said Trump "came up with the idea" after circulating "a fake memo from a fake person with a fake email address."

The memo was the brainchild of author and economist Peter Navarro, a senior adviser to the administration on trade and manufacturing. He found himself in the 47th president’s inner circle after his son-in-law Jared Kushner discovered the book Death by China and recruited its author to join Trump’s 2016 campaign as an economic adviser.

“Vara is credited with writing a memo that said Trump could ‘ride to victory on tariffs,’” Maddow said. “The problem is that Ron Vara doesn’t exist. He never existed. The economic expert Peter Navarro has long cited to justify his obsession with tariffs is a fictional character.”

"My name is also an anagram of Macho Wattler, but I'm not trying to convince you to do what Macho Wattler wants, right?" Maddow asked.

Maddow pointed to two previous peaks in the VIX, an index that measures stock market volatility. The last two were in 2008, during the global recession, and in March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The third peak, she continued, reflects the current state of the U.S. economy, and that peak “was not caused by the worst financial catastrophe since the Great Depression or a global pandemic that has killed millions of people.”

"This peak was simply caused by Donald Trump being president again and bringing his big ideas to the world again. And the scale of what he's doing, the scale of the destruction he's already caused, is hard to wrap your mind around," Maddow concluded.

“It’s hard to comprehend how much damage one person can do. But I think it’s even harder to comprehend that he can do so much damage with so little, so little, so much thought,” she said. “You’d think it would take a grand design and a lot of smart heads to destroy the economy of the richest country in the world, but it’s not like that. It doesn’t take a great idea or a team of great minds.”

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