There are certain people in Washington who become famous because they chase the spotlight. Peter Navarro built his reputation doing something far less glamorous: arguing that America should make things again.

For years, that argument was treated as quaint at best and dangerous at worst. Free trade was presented as an unquestionable good. Manufacturing was something advanced economies supposedly outgrew. If factories closed in Ohio or Pennsylvania, that was simply the cost of progress. Americans would design products, someone else would build them, and everyone would somehow come out ahead.

That was the theory. Reality had other plans.

When global supply chains buckled during the pandemic, Americans got an uncomfortable reminder of what had been lost. Essential medical equipment became scarce. Critical components for everything from automobiles to semiconductors were suddenly difficult to obtain. A country that once prided itself on making almost everything discovered just how dependent it had become on foreign production.

Long before that lesson became painfully obvious, Peter Navarro was warning that America was hollowing out its industrial base.

He argued that trade policy wasn't simply about cheaper imports. It was about national resilience, economic security, and preserving the productive capacity that had long underpinned American prosperity. Critics dismissed those concerns as protectionist nostalgia. Today, many of those same critics speak comfortably about supply-chain resilience, strategic industries, reshoring, and reducing dependence on geopolitical rivals. The terminology has evolved, but the concern is strikingly familiar.

Donald Trump recognized that long before it became fashionable.

When Trump entered the White House, he didn't simply bring Navarro into the administration. He created........

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