Trump’s views on trade are crude: there are winners (them) and losers (us), and there is one simple solution that will fix everything (threat of a trade war). How Trump came to these views is not totally clear, but his thinking, especially on trade and China, has certainly been influenced by Peter Navarro, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine. Being the only economist—and one with a Harvard Ph.D. at that—on Donald Trump’s economic team, Navarro provides a patina of legitimacy. (The others on Trump’s economic team are businesspeople who donated to the campaign and several people from the far right of Republican economic thought.) Navarro’s views on trade and China are so radical, however, that, even with his assistance, I was unable to find another economist who fully agrees with them. Should Donald Trump overcome the odds against him now and be elected President, Navarro would likely become the single most powerful economic adviser in the United States. (Emphasis added)The bit in bold really says it all, no one agrees with this guy. In fact, as I have noted before, everybody seems to disagree with him. To have all of Paul Krugman, Greg Mankiw and Don Boudreaux attacking you takes some doing, but Trump, and his advisers, have achieved this (dis)honour.
Trumponomics is just weird, and potentially dangerous.
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