Peter Navarro is one of America’s biggest risk-takers when it comes to advancing his immediate interest. He does not let his nation’s or even his own credibility come in the way of what he covets at this very moment.

So, while he puts US foreign policy efforts of two-and-a-half decades with India on the line with his increasingly incendiary statements, it is important to remember that this is a man who casually blew up his own trustworthiness for the sake of a few quotes for his books.

Navarro, the White House’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing and Trump’s most emboldened attack dog on tariffs right now, frequently quotes economist Ron Vara in his books. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Except that Ron Vara does not exist. It was found after some digging that this ‘acclaimed’ economist is not just a figment of Navarro’s imagination. Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro’s own name, an entity born from the flesh of his own letters.

A man who can go to the length of inventing a fake economist to mouth his own views can easily extrapolate that disingenuity in the much larger playground of geopolitics. Which is why one should not be shocked when he tells........

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