If you were wondering if China's ruling party noticed that Trump's top trade adviser Peter Navarro is a fraud who says you shouldn't eat Chinese food, you can stop wondering because they definitely did.
Chinese state media controlled by the ruling party is asking how sound Navarro's advice to Trump can be given that he's a lying racist.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The editor-in-chief of a Chinese state-run newspaper on Thursday criticized White House trade adviser Peter Navarro for quoting a fictitious anti-China economist in his books, and said it raised questions about his counsel to U.S. President Donald Trump. [...]
“This is shameless fabrication. Navarro cheated his readers. Who knows if he also misled the US President,” Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a tabloid published by the People’s Daily of China’s ruling Communist Party, said in a Twitter post.
Navarro acknowledged in his statement that “Ron Vara” was an anagram for “Navarro” and went on to say that “it’s refreshing that somebody finally figured out an inside joke that has been hiding in plain sight for years.”
Ha! Get it? He was hiding the fact that he's a racist crackpot in plain sight! The joke's on you, people who didn't realize he was a fraud the entire time. He really got you.
I don't think this makes it less likely that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will sign some kind of temporary truce next month, but I would not be too surprised if Navarro leaves the White House in the relatively near future.
It's one thing for Trump's top trade adviser to advocate for tariffs and a decoupling of our economies -- it's another thing for him to do so while also making racist comments about Chinese culture. Chinese officials may consider Navarro's presence to be an insult at this point and it could be difficult to continue negotiations while sitting across the table from him.