US will reclaim global supply chain, says Trump aide

Bloomberg

The US is seeking more “reciprocal” trade with countries such as China and Germany in a bid to boost growth, reduce the trade deficit and keep American production capacity out of foreign hands, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said.
“If we are able to reduce our trade deficit through tough, smart negotiations, we should be able to incr-
ease our growth rate,” Navarro said at an economists’ conference in Washington on Monday. Without action
to close the gap, “foreigners will
eventually own so much of America that there will be nothing left to trade,” he warned.
Navarro said the Trump administration wants to rebuild the American industrial base, reversing the decline in the nation’s manufacturing workforce. He noted that about 20 percent of Germany’s labor force is employed in manufacturing, compared with only about 8 percent in the US.
“One of the goals of the Trump administration is to reclaim all of the supply chain and manufacturing capability that would otherwise exist if the playing field were level,” said Navarro.
On the campaign trail, Trump championed the idea of reducing the US trade gap, promising to create millions of jobs by bringing back manufacturing positions from overseas. The message resonated in economically struggling states amid a widening of the deficit, which last year increased to the largest since 2012.
President Donald Trump’s goal is to promote “free, fair and reciprocal trade,” Navarro said, adding that right now America’s trade with the world is “anything but reciprocal.” He identified 16 nations that account “for the lion’s share of the deficit problem,” such as Ireland, Vietnam, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Switzerland.

CHINA, INDIA
Asked if China’s yuan is fairly valued, Navarro said “it’s clear that the Chinese currency is undervalued” when looked at based on the trade balance between the US and China, though he acknowledged that Chinese authorities have recently been intervening to prop up the yuan. He declined to comment on the value of the US dollar.
Navarro singled out India for having “notoriously high” tariffs, and said the US trade deficit with Germany will be among the toughest to tackle. The American plan seeking to reduce the trade deficit “is not based on higher tariffs, but rather getting our partners to lower theirs,” said Navarro, the director of the White House National Trade Council.
The administration’s strategy to narrow its trade gap by dealing directly with other countries won’t work, the International Monetary Fund’s former chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, said on Bloomberg TV after Navarro’s speech.