Navarro: 'What People In This Audience Call 'Populism' or 'Nationalism' Simply Means Doing What Is Best For Americans First'

White House senior counsel for trade and manufacturing Peter Navarro spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations on Friday morning about the administration's "America First" policy agenda, their general attitude towards China, and economic fears over tariffs. Navarro delivered brief remarks about the gulf between the CFR and Trumpworld, participated in a discussion on the administration's economic strategy, and answered questions from the audience.

He began with a frank assessment of the CFR's "establishment, technocratic, and globalist ideology" and contrasted it with the Trump administration's "America First" policy.

"CFR has been uniformly anti-tariff and anti-Trump, and highly skeptical of an America First form of policy that, in truth, is restoring our trade balance, rebuilding our industrial base, strengthening alliances like NATO, keeping --and as we just saw in the Mideast, negotiating-- broader peace, and reasserting American sovereignty on the global stage," Navarro began.


The Council on Foreign Relations states that its role is "to inform U.S. engagement with the world."