Tyler Durden suspects the globalist faction is winning in an ideological trade battle being waged inside the Trump administration:
Earlier this week, when we discussed Peter Navarro’s jarring op-ed in the WSJ in which he alleged that the persistent US trade deficit “would put US national security in jeopardy”, we said that “a better question than what is Navarro’s purpose by writing it, is why he is writing it, and does his use of a public forum like the WSJ mean that there is friction between him and Trump camp, especially since in recent weeks it appears that a core pillar of Trump’s trade policies, namely the border adjustability, appear to no longer be on the docket of actionable items.”
As it turns out, that was precisely the correct question, because as the FT reports, “a civil war has broken out within the White House over trade, leading to what one official called “a fiery meeting” in the Oval Office pitting economic nationalists close to Donald Trump against pro-trade moderates from Wall Street.”
More notably, the person at the center of this “civil war” is none other than Navarro, who as we expected is now said to be losing influence, and as a result he resorted to using the WSJ as a means to appeal directly to the general public. It may have been a prudent gamble: the WSJ op-ed may have helped Navarro salvage some of his credibility with Trump, according to the FT:
The officials and people dealing with the White House said Mr Navarro appeared to be losing influence in recent weeks. But during the recent Oval Office fight, Mr Trump appeared to side with the economic nationalists, one official said.
Facing off the “hardline group” of Navarro, and other “nationalists” such as Steve Bannon, is a a “faction” led by former Goldman COO Gary Cohn, a career globalist, who leads Mr Trump’s National Economic Council.
But what is just as important, is that if the FT is right, then allegations that Trump has “sold out” to his Goldman advisors may be premature: in fact, if anything, Trump appears to be playing off one camp, the “nationalists”, against its polar opposite, the “Goldman globalists”:
The battle over trade is emblematic of a broader fight on economic policy within the Trump’s administration. It comes ahead of a visit to Washington next week by Ms Merkel, the German chancellor, and amid preparations for a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Germany next week at which allies’ concerns over protectionism are likely to be high on the agenda.
While the White House was non-committal, providing the FT with the following brief statement:
“Gary Cohn and Peter Navarro are both valued members of the president’s economic team. They are working together to enact the president’s economic agenda, protect American workers and grow American businesses.”… the “globalists” led by Cohn and others “have seized on Mr Navarro’s public comments — and widespread criticism by economists of his stand on trade deficits and other matters — to try and sideline him.”
That has led to discussions over moving Mr Navarro and the new National Trade Council he leads out of the White House and to the Commerce Department, headed by another Wall Street veteran, Wilbur Ross.And, if the FT is correct, it appears that the Goldman-led faction is winning.
Can you spot the potential flaw in Durden’s reasoning. There is an alternative explanation. Isn’t it at least possible that the Financial Times is spinning things in Cohn’s favor for precisely the same reason it claims Navarro published his Wall Street Journal op/ed? It’s not as if the FT isn’t openly on the side of the globalists and free traders, after all.
And what are two things we know SJWs always do? They lie and they project. Aside from academia, what field is more SJW-converged than the media? I would not consider the FT to be either a reliable or an impartial source in this matter. You’d think people would have learned by now. Don’t ever count the God-Emperor out until he is actually, confirmably, undeniably, out.