President Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro appeared to tell Fox News on Monday evening that Trump's trade deal with China was "over."
The markets did not welcome that news.
Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Axios that the trade deal isn't over. "The U.S. remains engaged with China over the Phase 1 trade deal signed last January, and according to trade negotiator Bob Lighthizer the deal is going well," Kudrow said. "President Trump has made similar comments just recently," Trump then made a similar comment on Twitter.
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Navarro issued a statement saying his comments, which you can watch above, "have been taken wildly out of context. They had nothing at all to do with the Phase 1 trade deal, which continues in place." Navarro added that he "was simply speaking to the lack of trust we now have of the Chinese Communist Party after they lied about the origins of the China virus and foisted a pandemic upon the world."
Navarro, in his statement and Fox News interview, suggested that China deliberately infected the U.S. with the coronavirus, a serious allegation he did not, and likely cannot, substantiate — and that even if true, would not explain the U.S.'s failure to manage the outbreak nearly as well as its peers. Peter Weber
