I’m having a good time watching the back and forth on tariffs coming from Musk and Navarro. Here’s Navarro on how even when these weasel countries counter with Zero tariff they cheat:
“Let’s take Vietnam. When they come to us and say ‘we’ll go to zero tariffs,’ that means nothing to us because it’s the non-tariff cheating that matters,” he said.
Navarro said that the alleged “non-tariff cheating” he referred to included letting China route its exports through a country to avoid tariffs, stealing intellectual property, and levying a value-added tax (VAT) on products.
Later, Navarro added that among the many problems the administration sees with its trading partners are export subsidies, currency manipulation, and “phony” technical and safety barriers for U.S. agricultural products.
“They all cheat us in a different way,” he said.
The good news – Fifty countries have already reached out to negotiate tariff agreements with the White House, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox News Monday. And while Navarro said Trump would listen to any offers, the president has stood firm on last week’s “liberation day” tariffs so far.
Musk doesn’t see it quite the same way. According to one report Musk posted on social media that “Navarro is truly a moron.” Musk posted that “a PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing” and went even further in a now-deleted post, using an expletive to say Navarro hasn’t built anything. On Fox News Navarro said that “Elon sells cars” and is “simply protecting his own interests.” He also told CNBC: “We all understand in the White House, and the American people understand, that Elon is a car manufacturer. But he’s not a car manufacturer — he’s a car assembler.”
Well, I think the company that Musk built is a bit more than that. I have some reliable information on this topic via a friend of mine who worked on the floor maintaining the robots during the manufacturing process. In the end, though indeed Musk does what he can to lower the cost of goods through efficiencies – Tesla with its super computers, AI capabilities, solar panels, power wall batteries, and the “gigafactory” is quite a bit more than just a car company in any traditional sense of the word.
But in simple terms Navarro is right. If we look just at the car – he assembles it and outsources many of the parts that goes into it. Though I love the genius of Musk and the companies he created that are truly revolutionary – yes, there is NO EV car company anywhere near Tesla in price performance and the ability to provide a one stop shop for truly zero emission solution (that is, by utilizing solar panels to generate the energy, and battery back up for the house – this solution eliminates the nasty little secret that the grid that provides electricity for most EVs is coal or carbon based electricity and is not that clean if looked at in total.) – Nevertheless, I like Navarro’s thinking here. I tend to side with him on this economic issue. He gets it. Musk has issues because he in fact benefits from having cheap parts for his cars. So, this fight between the two of them is fun to watch. Yes, it does get a bit nasty – after all, we have some massive egos here. As Trump’s spokes model has correctly – noted – “boys will be boys!” While the left simply hates – the smart guys on the right DEBATES!