San Diego’s ‘Own’ Peter Navarro to Hunt ‘Anonymous’ White House Staffer

Did you see who Trump is placing in charge of the Hunt for Anonymous? San Diego’s own Peter Navarro. Yup, that’s right.

According to Yahoo News:

Officially, assistant to the president Peter Navarro is Trump’s point-man on trade policy. But Navarro has also taken it upon himself in recent weeks to uncover the identity of the person known simply as “Anonymous,” the senior Trump administration official who has railed against the president in the New York Times opinion pages and, most recently, in a bestselling book titled A Warning, and whose actual identity has so far confounded White House leak hunters.

Since at least the time of the impeachment process against Trump, Navarro — whom the president affectionately calls “my Peter”— began conducting his own private investigation into the identity of Anonymous, according to three sources with knowledge of Navarro’s efforts.

One of those sources described Navarro’s investigative efforts as partially an in-depth analysis of the language and phrases used in Anonymous’ book and other public writings.

Maybe while searching for Anonymous, Navarro can hunt down the fictional character he quoted in his books on China. He had – it turned out, invented an “expert” and quoted him – but it was himself. Last October, it was revealed by the New York Times:

Washington learned about the mysterious anti-China voice that has long whispered in Mr. Navarro’s ear: Ron Vara.

Ron Vara has appeared as a cryptic voice of economic wisdom more than a dozen times in five of Mr. Navarro’s 13 books, dispensing musings like “You’ve got to be nuts to eat Chinese food” and “Only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath, a baby crib into a lethal weapon and a cellphone battery into heart-piercing shrapnel.”

But Ron Vara, it turns out, does not exist. At least not in corporeal form. He is apparently a figment of Mr. Navarro’s imagination — an anagram of Mr. Navarro’s surname that the trade adviser created as a Hitchcockian writing device and stuck with as something of an inside joke with himself.

For those not in the know, Peter Navarro had a long history in San Diego as a well-known “slow-growth” advocate. He also ran for political office, three, four times here – and lost every race. Here’s what we said of Navarro back in 2018:

Peter Navarro was well known in San Diego and Ocean Beach back in the 1990s as a type of environmentalist activist and populist politician. He said he used to surf OB. He was an in-your-face, slow-growth advocate – and a Democrat. He led a group called PLAN, Prevent Los Angelization Now. He ran for local office 5 times – and I’m certain I voted for him at least once – but lost each time, although a couple were close.

After being a lecturer at USD and UCSD in the 1980s, his first electoral campaign was in 1992. He ran in a crowded mayoral primary and received the most votes (38%), but in the general election, he lost to Republican Susan Golding, 52% to 48%.

A year later in 1993, Navarro ran for city council in District 1 – and lost by a hair (277 votes) to Harry Mathis. Then in 1994, he was narrowly defeated again (3,265 votes) this time by Ron Roberts in a race for the 4th District of the county Board of Supervisors.

In 1996, Navarro tried an upset of Congressman Brian Bilbray California’s 49th District and big name Democrats campaigned for him (Hillary Clinton and then US Congressman – later Mayor Bob Filner) – but to no avail. He lost again. His last San Diego campaign was for the city council again – this time for District 6. He didn’t make it. San Diego Union-Tribune

Finally, Navarro gave up on San Diego, moved to Orange County and UC Irvine, where he became a professor and author of a dozen economic books.

UC Irvine is where Navarro changed. He went from a Democrat populist to a hard-line critic of China and an strong advocate of right-wing politics and economics. Today he sits as the Assistant to the President, Director of Trade and Industrial Policy, and the Director of the White House National Trade Council, – fancy titles for a sycophant – where he he fuels Trump’s anti-China tirades. And yes, he campaigned viciously for Trump.

So, Navarro has joined a select club of former San Diego politicians, who once all had a populist type of politics, but changed into having racist and/ or right-wing views; we’re talking Pete Wilson, former mayor and governor and we’re talking Roger “Light ’em up” Hedgecock, also former mayor, and now racist radio talkshow host.  Congrats, Peter.

Yet, generally, Navarro’s views are considered significantly outside the mainstream of economic thought; a strong proponent of reducing U.S. trade deficits; a critic of Germany and China for so-called currency manipulation; he wants high tariffs for the US, and is against both NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In an interview with the Guardian a couple of years ago, Navarro claimed his harsh critiques on China have nothing to do with race or ethnicity. He said:

“It’s about a brutal, authoritarian communist government that’s engaged in mercantilist enterprise, and is allowed to get away with it.”

The Guardian then reported:

In documentaries and books – the latest is Crouching Tiger: What China’s Militarism Means for the World – Navarro has depicted China as an insatiable menace which systematically bullies, lies and cheats, especially on trade rules through currency manipulation, illegal export subsidies, intellectual property theft and polluting sweatshops. “China uses these weapons of job destruction to unfairly tilt the playing field.”

Bill Clinton let the chicken into the hen house by paving China’s entry to the World Trade Organization in 2001, said Navarro, enabling the Asian giant to siphon US jobs, industry and growth, which in turn funded Chinese military expansion. “This is the essence of Trump’s campaign. He understands this problem.”

The Guardian