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White House at war: Elon Musk v Peter Navarro · The Front

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, April tenth, twenty twenty five. The bar for
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: teacher training has never been lower. Some Australian universities are
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  Speaker 1: enrolling students to their teaching programs with ATAR scores below fifty,
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  Speaker 1: and it could explain why student teacher numbers have suddenly jumped.
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  Speaker 1: That exclusive story from Education editor Natasha Beta is live
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  Speaker 1: right now at The Australian dot com dot au. Two
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  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's closest advisors are at each other's throats.
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  Speaker 1: The world's richest man, Elon Musk, is openly ridiculing Peter Navarro,
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  Speaker 1: the architect of the Trump tariffs that have rocked the
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  Speaker 1: world today. What's going on inside the White House?
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  Speaker 2: Navarro's truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false.
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  Speaker 1: That's a tweet by Elon Musk, Donald Trump's right hand man,
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  Speaker 1: and he's talking about Trump's left hand man, Peter Navarro.
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  Speaker 2: Ritardo is dangerously dumb. Independent experts agree that he is retarded.
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  Speaker 1: Those are Elon Musk's words, but we've used an AI
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  Speaker 1: voice to read them. Navarro is one of the key
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  Speaker 1: architects of Trump's tariffs, you know, the ones presently wiping
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  Speaker 1: billions of all our retirement savings, the Australian dollar and
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  Speaker 1: the value of all stocks. Masque's beef with him is
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  Speaker 1: about tariffs and Navarro's suggestion that Mosk's car company Tesla
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  Speaker 1: uses foreign components.
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  Speaker 2: Dsla has the most American made cars. Navarro's dumber than
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  Speaker 2: a sack of bricks.
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  Speaker 3: Trump is a chaos agent. In fact, I think he
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  Speaker 3: tends to thrive on chaos.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is the Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC.
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  Speaker 3: I think there'd be a lot of frustration about the
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  Speaker 3: status that Navarro has in Trump's center circle. And I
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  Speaker 3: think that's what we're seeing from Elon Musk, who clearly
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  Speaker 3: thinks the direction of trade policy makes no sense and
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  Speaker 3: is publicly revealing his frustrations, which is the other fascinating thing.
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  Speaker 3: He feels free he can do that, that he can
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  Speaker 3: say these things on social media and there's been no
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  Speaker 3: intervention from Trump, and in fact, Carolyn Levitt in the
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  Speaker 3: press briefing earlier today sort of almost seemed to poke
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  Speaker 3: fun at it. Obviously, two individuals who have very different
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  Speaker 3: views on trade and on Tariff's boys will be boys
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  Speaker 3: and we will let their public sparring continue.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what Navarro said.
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  Speaker 4: The American people understand that Eli's a car manufacturer, but
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  Speaker 4: he's not a car manufacturer. He's a car assembler. In
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  Speaker 4: many cases, if you go to his Texas plan, a
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  Speaker 4: good part of the engines that he gets, which in
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  Speaker 4: the ed case is the batteries come from Japan and
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  Speaker 4: come from China, the electronics come from Taiwan. What we
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  Speaker 4: want and the difference is in our thinking in elons
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  Speaker 4: on this is that we want the tires made in Akron,
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  Speaker 4: we want the transmissions made in Indianapolis, we want the
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  Speaker 4: engines made in Flint and Saginaw, and we want the
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  Speaker 4: cars manufactured here.
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  Speaker 1: During a flurry of ridicule on x, Musk also said.
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  Speaker 2: Peace by any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically
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  Speaker 2: integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of
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  Speaker 2: US content. Navarro should ask the fake expert he invented
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  Speaker 2: ron Vara just as an assign.
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  Speaker 1: That's a character Pitanavarro, who's a Harvard trained economics PhD,
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  Speaker 1: invented when he was a university lecturer in several of
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  Speaker 1: his books, Navarro quoted an individual named ron Vara that's
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  Speaker 1: an anagram of his own surname, offering wisdom on issues
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  Speaker 1: like investing. He subsequently said it was a whimsical pen
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  Speaker 1: name he occasionally used.
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  Speaker 2: Joe.
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  Speaker 1: It's not surprising that the interests of a billionaire like
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  Speaker 1: Elon mask or even a billionaire like Donald Trump would
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  Speaker 1: clash with an anti free trade agenda. Billionaires have had
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars wiped off their personal wealth.
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  Speaker 1: Speaking by and large, but Masks dislike of Peter Navarro
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  Speaker 1: seems to be more visceral than that. What do you
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  Speaker 1: think is actually going on between these two men.
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  Speaker 3: Well, to be honest, Claire, I think what's going on
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  Speaker 3: is that there's annoyance and frustration within the Trump administration
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  Speaker 3: that Navarro is the guy who's calling the shots on trade.
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  Speaker 3: Navarro is the guy who seems to be able to
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  Speaker 3: influence Donald Trump to take a really strong, across the
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  Speaker 3: board stance on tariff's with a baseline ten percent tariff.
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  Speaker 3: And my information is that when you look at the
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  Speaker 3: influence of the broader range of economic members in Trump's team,
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  Speaker 3: we're talking about people like Scott Bessett's Treasury secretary, how
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  Speaker 3: Lutnik is Commerce Secretary. Even Jamison Greer is the USTR.
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  Speaker 3: Trump seems to be more inclined to listen to Navarro.
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  Speaker 3: I think it must be frustrating to other members of
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  Speaker 3: the Trump economic team. But Navarro is part of the
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  Speaker 3: inner circle. He's been there in the trenches with Trump
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  Speaker 3: for years, and so he's got a lot of loyalty
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  Speaker 3: capital with Trump that's built up.
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  Speaker 1: It's a really interesting philosophical difference, isn't it, between you know,
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  Speaker 1: the old team Trump and the new Does it prompt
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  Speaker 1: us to ask questions about what is it exactly that
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  Speaker 1: Elon Musk sees in Donald Trump. If he doesn't like
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  Speaker 1: this core belief of Donald Trump's which he's been talking
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  Speaker 1: about since the eighties, then what is it?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a really fascinating question, I think Claire, this
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  Speaker 3: alliance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and also between
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  Speaker 3: the tech giants and Donald Trump, which we're also seeing
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  Speaker 3: at the moment. Look putting trade to one side, Donald
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  Speaker 3: Trump has adopted fiercely sort of pro business policies. He
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  Speaker 3: has a very aggressive deregulation agenda, which Elon Musk certainly
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  Speaker 3: likes and obviously would see lots of advantages in that
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  Speaker 3: for himself. He's got a load tax agenda as well. Obviously,
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  Speaker 3: this was what a lot of the excitement was going
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  Speaker 3: into January twenty. Wall Street was really excited about the
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  Speaker 3: prospect of a booming US economy and growth really taking off.
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  Speaker 3: And it's the tariff agenda which has served as the
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  Speaker 3: dist which is undermining that sense of optimism and really
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  Speaker 3: creating a lot of uncertainty for business owners. People are
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  Speaker 3: talking about tariff whiplash. So even if the tariffs, you know,
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  Speaker 3: are changed after a short period of time, or an
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  Speaker 3: exemption is granted before particular tariffs come in for a
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  Speaker 3: month or however long it is, there's really no certainty
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  Speaker 3: for businesses to make plans. There are parts of Trump's
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  Speaker 3: agenda which seem at conflict with one another. This is
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  Speaker 3: what makes Trump such a complicated political figure and operator.
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  Speaker 3: There are probably aspects of the Trump agenda Elon Musk
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  Speaker 3: doesn't really like, and he's making it clear, which is
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  Speaker 3: really fascinating.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. So if Peter Navarro is the one shaking
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  Speaker 1: the world, what does he really believe in?
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  Speaker 4: They're coming now and saying, we want to talk, will
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  Speaker 4: lower our tariffs to zero. If you'll lower your tears,
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  Speaker 4: that's not the problem.
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  Speaker 1: Here's an insight into what Peter Navarro thinks. Having just
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  Speaker 1: orchestrated globe shattering tariffs, he says, well, tariffs can't really
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  Speaker 1: fix the big problem anyway.
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  Speaker 4: Vietnam is a great example, Lauri. They sell US fifteen
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  Speaker 4: dollars for everyone we sell them zero. TIFFs would get
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  Speaker 4: us no reduction in the one hundred and twenty three
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  Speaker 4: billion dollar deficit we have.
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  Speaker 1: The big problem, Navarro says, is the fact that the
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  Speaker 1: US imports more than it exports to low wage countries
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  Speaker 1: like Vietnam, which he thinks are stooges for China anyway.
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  Speaker 1: But then on other issues, Navarro argues the opposite, like Australia.
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  Speaker 1: For example, America has a trade surplus with US, that is,
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  Speaker 1: we buy more of their exports like machinery and chemicals
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  Speaker 1: then they buy of Australian goods like raw meat and
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  Speaker 1: some manufactured goods.
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  Speaker 3: Navarro was able to exert great influence over the shape
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  Speaker 3: of Donald Trump's Liberation Day tariffs, and he was the
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  Speaker 3: person that Donald Trump listened to the most. He was
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  Speaker 3: forcefully arguing for a universal across the board tariff, and frankly,
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  Speaker 3: given his influence, I think Australia actually was quite lucky
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  Speaker 3: to get away with the ten percent. I think that
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  Speaker 3: baseline tariff, had Navarro had his way, could have been
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  Speaker 3: substantially higher than ten percent. He was particularly exercised about
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  Speaker 3: Australian beef. For example, the US keeps saying that we
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  Speaker 3: ban American beef. Well, actually, we just have a requirement
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  Speaker 3: that the US needs to certify that the beef comes
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  Speaker 3: from America, and we've been insisting on that, I think
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  Speaker 3: since about twenty nineteen, because we're concerned about beef coming
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  Speaker 3: in from Mexico or Canada that might have diseases in it.
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  Speaker 3: We accept that the beef is fine from the US,
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  Speaker 3: but we just need to know that's where it comes from.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it suggests that this is not the only
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  Speaker 1: instance in which Peter Navarro has got the wrong end
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  Speaker 1: of the stick, doesn't it? Or that the American administration
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  Speaker 1: has the wrong end of a stick in what it
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  Speaker 1: perceives as being it's trade relationships and that everybody's doing
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  Speaker 1: America over.
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, I just make one other point about Peter Navarro.
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  Speaker 3: Since the Liberation Day tariffs were announced, the stock market
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  Speaker 3: has gone crazy. I think in the first two days
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  Speaker 3: it was about six point five trillion in value gone.
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  Speaker 3: Navarro is out very forcefully saying the stock market will
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  Speaker 3: be booming, it will bounce back. This is all an
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  Speaker 3: adjustment period. Things are going to be okay. Don't panic,
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  Speaker 3: don't sell your shares. But the reason he's saying that
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  Speaker 3: is because he's got the most to lose. I think,
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  Speaker 3: if this policy is seen to fail, and so far
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  Speaker 3: I don't think it's looking good, the person with a
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  Speaker 3: target on his back, in my view, is Peter Novara.
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  Speaker 1: Joe Kelly is The Australian's correspondent in Washington, DC,