AHEAD OF G20 SUMMIT: Trump's Top Trade Adviser Blasts China and Goldman Sachs

G20 Argentina 2018

President Trump’s senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro, excoriated China and attacked Goldman Sachs and Wall Street as Beijing’s “unpaid foreign agents” who are weakening the U.S. leader before his meeting this month with China’s president, reports The Wall Street Journal.

As the upcoming Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires looms, where President Trump will be meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping,  Navarro is pushing for a hard line on the talks.

But at least there are some crony free traders around Trump.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, have been trying to line up a deal, according to the Journal.

Navarro is fighting back against this semi-pro trade group aggressively.

“If Wall Street is involved and continues to insinuate itself in these negotiations, there will be a stench around any deal that’s consummated because it will have the imprimatur of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street,” Mr. Navarro said in a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, reports the Journal.

Mnuchin is former Goldman Sachs and Kudlow is friendly to Wall Street.

Reports the Journal:

Mr. Navarro, in his talk, took a subtle jab at his main adversary, Mr. Mnuchin, who has tried to sideline Mr. Navarro and arrange talks with Beijing. Mr. Navarro said, “You’re not in good hands when negotiations get outside” of Messrs. Trump and [the anti-trade U.S. Trade Representative Robert]Lighthizer.

Mr. Navarro lashed out at what he called “a self-appointed group of Wall Street bankers and hedge-fund managers” who he described as “globalist billionaires.”
“The mission of these unregistered foreign agents—that’s what they are; t

hey are unregistered foreign agents—is to pressure this president into some kind of deal,” Mr. Navarro said.

The Journal adds:

 Mr. Trump sometimes favors one group and sometimes the other.

The G20 Summit will be held in  Buenos Aires between November 26 and December 1, with the leaders Summit being held on November 30 and December 1.

-RW