Navarro, a prominent China hawk whose protectionist views and abrasive demeanor have earned him a full slate of enemies, now finds himself more empowered than at any time in his three-year White House tenure. While he still remains on the fringes of the President's economic team, the caustic trade adviser faces fewer roadblocks to influencing policy discussions and more top officials willing to give him a seat at the table. And with the stroke of Trump's pen, he has been empowered with legal authority as
the Defense Production Act coordinator.
"Two or three years ago he was totally excluded, totally kept in a box," one administration official said, comparing him to a "gadfly." "Now, he's in the Oval all the time, he's on the podium at press briefings."
When Navarro fired off his internal flare in late January, other White House officials dismissed his memo -- which focused exclusively on banning travel from China as a remedy -- as the latest anti-China musings of a man who considers almost every issue through that ideological lens. And while his worst-case scenario warning may now appear prescient -- trillions of dollars in economic losses and millions of Americans infected -- the trade adviser relied on only a few data points and no public health expertise to make his case.
Less than a month later, as Trump continued to downplay the threat, Navarro warned that the risk of a pandemic was rising and urged the White House's coronavirus task force to secure billions in supplemental spending, according to two sources familiar with the second memo, one of whom provided a copy to CNN.
Trump said Tuesday that he didn't see Navarro's coronavirus warning memos until a "day or two" ago but that he hadn't sought them out.
Asked why he initially downplayed the coronavirus even as his adviser was warning of potential devastation, Trump said during his daily coronavirus briefing that he wasn't interested in causing panic.
"I'm not going to go out and start screaming, this could happen," Trump said. "I'm a cheerleader for this country. I don't want to create havoc and shock."
Asked about the memos on Tuesday, another Trump economic adviser, National Economic Council chairman Larry Kudlow, said he hadn't read them.
"Look, there are a lot of voices in the administration, some more urgent than others," he said.
