Southern California professor joins Trump's economic advisory team

Peter Navarro, a professor of economics and public policy at UCu2009Irvine’s business school, is emerging as one of the most visible advocates of Donald Trump’s economic platform.

“My role is to make sure the analysis is rock solid, the facts are rock solid,” said Navarro, 67, who is the only economist from academia on the 13-member advisory team aounced by the Trump campaign last week.

The group includes several real estate executives, private equity and hedge-fund managers, a Texas banking tycoon, a billionaire oil company magnate and a former Reagan administration deputy assistant treasury secretary.

“Whatever they need, I analyze the economic data,” Navarro added in an interview Monday.

A Laguna Beach resident who has a doctorate in economics from Harvard University, Navarro has written 10u2009books on topics ranging from personal investing to business management.

His recent work has focused on China, including two books and a documentary, “Death by China,” narrated by Martin Sheen.

Navarro endorses Trump’s skepticism on trade deals. The North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada “is broken,” he said. “It allows GM and Ford to build their auto assembly plants in Mexico rather than Michigan.

“The American people have been kicked in the teeth by unfair trade for decades.”

Navarro first coected with Trump in 2011, after the real estate magnate mentioned in a newspaper interview Navarro’s first book on China, “The Coming China Wars.”

“I reached out and thanked him,” Navarro said, “and he was kind enough to offer a testimonial” on a subsequent book.

Navarro attended the Republican convention in Cleveland and, he said, rose every morning at 4u2009a.m. to do media interviews, winding down at midnight.

Since China entered the World Trade Organization, Navarro said, “Our growth rate is half of the historical average of previous decades, and over 20u2009million people can’t find a decent job.”

If few mainstream economists endorse Trump’s protectionist views, it is because “My fellow economists and academics fail to understand the economics of trade in the real world,” Navarro said. “Traditional models of academia respect free trade without considering whether it is fair trade.”

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