Amid renewed controversy over the stalled India-US trade deal, a leaked audio recording of US Senator Ted Cruz has named President Donald Trump, Vice-President JD Vance and White House economic adviser Peter Navarro as responsible for the impasse.
Attention has since turned to Navarro, whose repeated hard-line and critical remarks on India have drawn scrutiny.
Who is Peter Navarro?
Peter Navarro is an American economist and political adviser best known for serving as a senior trade official in Trump’s administration, where he was a key architect of the administration’s hard-line, protectionist trade policies.
A Harvard-educated economist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, Navarro was Director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy from 2017 to 2021 and strongly advocated tariffs and reduced dependence on foreign supply chains.
He gained prominence for his aggressive stance on trade deficits, especially with China, and has also drawn attention for controversial remarks on US trading partners, including India, as well as for being convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with a House committee subpoena related to the January 6 investigation.
Navarro’s past anti-India remarks
In a recent interview on Real America’s Voice, Navarro criticised how Indians were gaining an advantage from Americans paying for AI usage in India. “Chat GPT is operating on US soil, using American electricity, servicing large users of Chat GPT, for example, in India and China and elsewhere around the world. So that’s another issue that’s got to be dealt with,” he said.
In 2025, Navarro consistently ranted against India for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil and high tariffs, calling India the “Maharaja of tariffs.”
He had also termed India’s purchases of Russian oil as “blood money” and said Delhi didn’t buy oil from Moscow in large quantities before the Ukraine conflict, The Hindu reported.
Navarro’s pot-shots at BRICS
In an earlier interview on Real America’s Voice, Navarro had also targeted BRICS and said “vampires are sucking our blood dry”.
He said none of the BRICS countries could “survive if they don’t sell to the United States” and compared their exports to unfair practices that “suck our blood dry.”