China hawk Navarro saw the dangers of coronavirus earlier than most in this country

CNN:
When President Donald Trump's hawkish trade adviser Peter Navarro warned in a late January internal memo that an outbreak of coronavirus in China could become a "full-blown pandemic," many top White House officials dismissed Navarro's warnings as alarmist. The President, for his part, continued to minimize the threat.

More than two months later, Navarro finds himself with a prominent role helping Trump speed the delivery of critical medical supplies and an influential perch at his side to tout an unproven treatment for the disease, picking a fight with the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. This time, Trump is on the same page as Navarro, ardently championing the drug, hydroxychloroquine, before clinical trials can prove or disprove its merits for treating coronavirus.

Navarro is just one player in the whole-of-government response to the coronavirus pandemic, but his ascent is emblematic of Trump's constantly shifting response to the crisis and the extent to which Trump is embracing a wide array of voices -- and the infighting that inevitably ensues -- as he lurches from one view of this pandemic to the next. Internal divisions, competing interests and presidential indecision have all been hallmarks of Trump's West Wing culture since its beginning, but never have they carried such life-or-death consequences.

Navarro, a prominent China hawk whose protectionist views and abrasive demeanor have earned him a full slate of enemies, now finds himself more empowered than at any time in his three-year White House tenure. While he still remains on the fringes of the President's economic team, the caustic trade adviser faces fewer roadblocks to influencing policy discussions and more top officials willing to give him a seat at the table. And with the stroke of Trump's pen, he has been empowered with legal authority as the Defense Production Act coordinator.

"Two or three years ago he was totally excluded, totally kept in a box," one administration official said, comparing him to a "gadfly." "Now, he's in the Oval all the time, he's on the podium at press briefings."

When Navarro fired off his internal flare in late January, other White House officials dismissed his memo -- which focused exclusively on banning travel from China as a remedy -- as the latest anti-China musings of a man who considers almost every issue through that ideological lens. And while his worst-case scenario warning may now appear prescient -- trillions of dollars in economic losses and millions of Americans infected -- the trade adviser relied on only a few data points and no public health expertise to make his case.
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It should be noted that Democrats were also downplaying the dangers of the virus at that time and continued to do so even after President Trump instituted travel bans on China and Europe.  Navarro has been prescient on China trade for some time and is now seen as prescient on the virus.  His role in the administration has become more prominent as he has been directing the production of medical equipment for those fighting the effects of the virus.

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