The remarkable durability of Peter Navarro, the Trump trade adviser Wall Street loves to hate

As Wall Street executives and traders white knuckle their way through the most acutely volatile market period since the pandemic, desperate to avoid the economic blast radius of President Donald Trump’s sweeping new trade war, Peter Navarro’s name is never far from the topic of conversation.

As Wall Street executives and traders white knuckle their way through the most acutely volatile market period since the pandemic, desperate to avoid the economic blast radius of President Donald Trump’s sweeping new trade war, Peter Navarro’s name is never far from the topic of conversation. In group chats, private messages, client notes, small gatherings at bars, clubs and restaurants, or even private calls to Trump administration allies — the tariff-loving White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing makes for a convenient villain. Executives, their deputies and analysts have explored seemingly every channel available — TV interviews, social media, earnings calls, industry conferences — to push for the elevation of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the billionaire former hedge fund manager seen as a moderating presence in the wake of the administration’s initial wave of tariffs. And many of them cheered when Elon Musk launched a series of personal attacks on Navarro last month. One finance executive, asked by CNN to summarize the anti-Navarro sentiment, was happy to provide a laundry list of grievances on the condition that his name wasn’t attached. A sampling: Navarro’s understanding of global supply chains is “egregiously simplistic,” they said, while comparing his “grasp of basic trade economics” to “that of a doorknob.” “I’m not trying to start a public war with that guy as long as he’s got the president’s ear,” the executive said in explaining his refusal to speak on the record at the same time he declined to mention Navarro by name — as if he’d achieved a kind of Voldemort-like status. “I think we’re all hoping he’s been sidelined, but he always seems to pop back up.” Trump’s most consistent and unrelenting tariff hawk hasn’t been bashful about his view that the feeling is mutual. All of which helps explain why much of Wall Street spent the past month frantically seizing on any sign Navarro had been cast aside.