White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has been increasingly sidelined during meetings and cut off from his once-regular access to the Oval Office as chief of staff John Kelly has moved to impose greater order on the West Wing.

But Navarro, a hard-liner on trade who has clashed with his more moderate colleagues, still has an ace up his sleeve when it comes to shaping policy — his close connection with President Donald Trump himself.


Navarro’s reputation as a trade warrior has so ingratiated him with Trump that when other administration officials initially cut Navarro out of trade negotiations with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago in April, the president insisted that he be by his side, asking “Where’s my Peter? Where’s my Peter?” according to a former White House official.

Now, Navarro’s pull with the president — and Kelly’s ability to contain the trade adviser’s freewheeling style — will be put to the test as Trump makes crucial decisions on everything from the North American Free Trade Agreement and a free trade deal with South Korea to whether to impose stiff tariffs on imports of steel, aluminum and solar panels.

Navarro “reinforces Trump’s worldview on trade, which many do not,” said Trump friend Roger Stone. “The president may be the only one in the building besides Navarro who really wants to renegotiate NAFTA. Everyone else thinks that’s a throwaway line from a campaign speech.”

Playbook PM Sign up for our must-read newsletter on what's driving the afternoon in Washington. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trump’s more moderate advisers have succeeded repeatedly in persuading the president to rethink his protectionist instincts. At one point, Trump seemed ready to slap tariffs on steel imports and withdraw from the South Korea trade deal — two top priorities for Navarro and his allies. Other aides interceded, successfully arguing that Trump should rely on the administration’s internal policy review process before making a rash decision, especially amid escalating tensions with North Korea.

Trump is increasingly eager to flex his muscles on trade, according to White House aides and outside advisers to the president, who added that the president is sometimes resentful of those who recommend a more measured approach to the issue. And, the advisers said, Kelly’s efforts to impose order on the West Wing have isolated the president — leaving Trump increasingly frustrated and unpredictable.

“I get the sense that the president is tired of being told that he can’t do X,Y or Z in the trade space,” said one White House official. “I think he’s lost patience with it. I don’t see how the free-trade camp in the West Wing can continue to put the brakes on this stuff. I think they’re going to have to choose what they want to prioritize.”

Vice President Mike Pence, left, and National Trade Council adviser Peter Navarro, right, wait for President Donald Trump to sign three executive orders, Monday, Jan. 23, 2017, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) | Evan Vucci/AP Photo

But one prominent D.C. lobbyist with close ties to the White House said Navarro has been largely shunned by other White House aides.

“No one gives a damn what he says other than Trump,” the lobbyist said. “With Bannon gone, they look at their watch when he talks.”

Navarro is the most vocal trade hawk in the White House, though Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer have also often taken more hard-line stances on trade, as did former strategist Steve Bannon before his departure in August, officials said.

“Navarro has always viewed himself as the lone man on the island, the one true keeper of the flame. That’s been the dynamic with him since Day One,” one administration official said, disputing that Navarro is isolated in the White House. “But when you look at the substance of the possible trade policy actions, Ross and Lighthizer are reasonably closely aligned with Navarro on many issues. Usually, Peter just puts it more forcefully and emphatically.”

From the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Navarro leads the White House Trade Council, but he’s largely a one-man band, with only two staffers. Prior to Kelly’s entry, Navarro enjoyed a private 15-minute conversation with Trump at least once a week, where he would “rile him up” on trade, according to a senior administration official.

As a deputy assistant to the president, he’s lost access to some key policy meetings in the White House that under Kelly are now reserved for principals or key senior staffers.

“There’s certainly no effort to keep Peter out of meetings,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “The distinction isn’t that he doesn’t have access. He’s presenting his case, both parties are walking through the policy together, and meetings are taking place and some of those conversations are being thought through more thoroughly before they go to the president, so it’s not a debate in front of the president, but more a laying out of the vision.”

“The president has never been shy that it’s an America-first policy when it comes to trade,” Sanders added. Navarro did not respond to a request for comment.

Navarro still attends weekly trade meetings organized by staff secretary Rob Porter, which gives him an opportunity to influence key policy outcomes. The meetings, which have been taking place in private for months, often feature the administration’s heaviest hitters on trade, including National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Ross and Lighthizer.

The former White House aide described those meetings as “brutal,” full of verbal arrows being thrown between Cohn and other members of the National Economic Council on one side and Navarro, Bannon, Lighthizer, policy adviser Stephen Miller and — sometimes — Trump on the other.

Cohn and Navarro have often clashed behind the scenes. Benjamin Levine, an Obama-appointed economic adviser who stayed in the White House until May, said that Cohn is often the first person to shut down Navarro’s ideas for withdrawing the U.S. from international trade deals.

“He’s the stopgap to the crazy ideas,” Levine said. “It’s the dance that Gary has learned.”

Cohn has advocated for a more traditional U.S. trade model, one that preserves existing trade deals. He scored two trade policy victories by helping to persuade Trump in April to renegotiate NAFTA instead of pulling out and not to name China a currency manipulator.

Navarro was brought on to Trump’s team by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Navarro became an ideological bedfellow to Trump and Bannon, advising the campaign on Canadian lumber tariffs and the finer points of NAFTA.

But with little political experience, he failed to build allies in the White House outside of Bannon, Miller and, occasionally, Lighthizer and Ross.

He pushed Trump to withdraw from NAFTA, reportedly prompting Kushner to open a back channel to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who persuaded Trump to renegotiate the deal rather than scrap it altogether. Navarro suffered his latest policy loss last week when Kelly and national security adviser H.R. McMaster prevailed on Trump to leave the South Korea trade deal intact.

Some White House aides saw two recent leaks — one over Trump’s plans to pull out of the South Korea trade deal and another over Trump’s private rant in favor of tariffs — as the work of administration advisers who want a tougher approach to trade.

A different administration official decried both stories as “strategic leaks” aimed at forcing Trump’s hand, arguing it undermines the careful policymaking process Kelly is trying to put in place.

Navarro has told people that he’s “miserable” under Kelly and is worried about how long he’ll last.

But while he may have less influence, there hasn’t been any real effort to remove him from his post — yet.

“He can last forever if he just sits there in his office and continues to write papers,” said a person close to the White House.

