White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said this week that the Trump administration’s trade moves over its first six months will pale in comparison to the “amazing” steps it will take over the next six, with national security investigations of steel and aluminum imports expected to “bear fruit” soon.
[| July 27, 2017 |Inside US Trade]
In a July 26 interview with radio host Laura Ingraham, Navarro also mentioned the renegotiation of NAFTA, the administration’s plan to modernize U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement and “other things in the pipeline” in promising “the most amazing actions on trade that have ever been done by a sitting president.”
Navarro said the first six months of trade actions have been “setting that up.”
Asked about the president’s suggestion this week that the Section 232 investigation of steel imports won’t lead to action as soon as expected, Navarro said “the delay, as it were, is the Department of Commerce must finish an investigation under the 232 statute, and if the secretary comes in with a finding that national security is harmed, then the president can act. So we’re waiting for that report. The secretary of Commerce is doing a measured, detailed job.”
