Don't Trust the Experts. Make Them Up!

Paging Ron Vara: If you were, say, a White House trade adviser who had been part of crafting the tariff plan that a) relied on a ChatGPT-based formula that makes no sense and levied tariffs on islands full of penguins, b) tanked the global economy, and c) was, so far, shockingly unpopular, wouldn't you want to put it all on someone else and have experts reaffirm your credibility?

Conveniently, the aforementioned Peter Navarro has his China hawk alter ego, Ron Vara. (Vara's writing, from 2011: "Only the Chinese can turn a leather sofa into an acid bath, a baby crib into a lethal weapon, and a cellphone battery into heart-piercing shrapnel." Well, OK!) Vara hasn't made an appearance just yet, but he's part of Navarro's rise to prominence.

Truly. I did not make this up. I'm not sure I even could.

Navarro's books contain repeated references to a man named Ron Vara, and in 2019 he co-authored a memo—advocating for tariffs—using that alter ego.

"Vara is a military veteran and Harvard-trained economist who made seven figures in the stock market by investing in companies that do well during international crises," in Navarro's telling, reported Tom Bartlett at The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2019. This has, per Navarro's books, earned him the nickname "Dark Prince of Disaster."

Why would Vara be valuable to Navarro? Well, Navarro is a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to China hawkdom and expertise, having only first traveled there in 2018 and having no Mandarin knowledge or deep background; Vara's expertise—though made up—is something Navarro can rest on to back up his arguments. Or, perhaps Navarro uses Vara as a sort of imaginary friend, someone to consult with during long nights in his office. I get it, I have a toddler, we do lots of imaginary friends. I just didn't know they were being used to lend credibility to our nation's economic policy.

Navarro told The Chronicle of Higher Education that Vara was a "whimsical device and pen name I've used throughout the years for opinions and purely entertainment value, not as a source of fact," which is…not true (just as his there-will-be-no-recession talking point earlier this week is not likely to be true, either). He also apparently compared the invented character to "Alfred Hitchcock appearing briefly in cameo in his movies." (Some of Navarro's coauthors through the years, like Glenn Hubbard, former dean of Columbia University's business school, were not aware that Vara was made up, for what it's worth, and were not happy with this revelation.)

(More Navarro from Eric Boehm here and here. TLDR? He might be just as bad as Bernie Sanders—and just as economically illiterate.)

Anyway, this brings me to the Musk feud.

On Saturday, Elon Musk took to X to mock Navarro's doctorate from Harvard, calling it a "bad thing, not a good thing." Navarro used a Fox News hit to claim Musk's opposition to these tariffs is wholly self-interested: "Elon sells cars. He's simply protecting his own interests."

Then, Navarro kept hitting back via cable news hits: "We all understand in the White House—and the American people understand—that Elon's a car manufacturer. But he's not a car manufacturer—he's a car assembler. If you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets, which in the EV case are the batteries, come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan….What we want—and the difference is in our thinking and Elon's on this—is that we want the tires made in Akron. We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here." This, of course, ignores the fact that Teslas contain the most American-made parts of any car currently on the market. So Musk responded:

Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2025

"By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content," added Musk. "Navarro should ask the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara."

Musk, for his part, has been trying to get Trump to reverse course on tariffs, to no avail. In an interview with Italy's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini this past weekend, Musk said he hoped to see a "free trade zone" between Europe and the United States, not what Trump is pursuing: "At the end of the day, I hope it's agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation."

"Who would have thought that Trump was actually the most high tax American President in generations," mused Musk's brother, Kimbal, on X. "Through his tariff strategy, Trump has implemented a structural, permanent tax on the American consumer."

104 percent tariffs: Earlier this week, it looked like Trump would impose 34 percent tariffs on China, per his Rose Garden address. Then, Beijing said it would in turn impose 34 percent retaliatory tariffs of its own on all U.S. goods. So Trump responded by tacking on another 50 percent to the China tariffs, which had up until recently stood at 20 percent. In total, that's a 104 percent tariff on Chinese goods. And China retaliated with 84 percent tariffs of its own.

All the higher tariff levels announced by the Trump administration go into effect today. It's a dark day for proponents of free trade, and it is not an exaggeration to say that the economic devastation that stems from these tariffs will be enormous, making it much harder for all Americans to afford groceries and basic household goods—not to mention building materials used to make houses, new appliances, cars, and all the stuff we've become accustomed to in our lifetimes.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about this, other than the fact that we're basically all getting a lot poorer, is that there's really no coherent strategy or justification. Administration officials keep cycling through all kinds of talking points, from other countries are ripping us off to we need supply-chain independence from China for national security reasons to reshoring American manufacturing will revitalize the middle class to trade deficits are fundamentally unfair and a really big problem to this is all a negotiating tactic to create more free-trade agreements than before. There's also the tax cuts are coming super soon, which will offset the tariff pain talking point. But consider too that it's a bit of a Potemkin administration, from the formula used to calculate the tariffs—touted as reciprocal but, in fact, based on trade deficits, seemingly generated by ChatGPT—to the sources cited by its top advisers (like Ron Vara).

The problem is, even an administration as dumb as this one can crash the economy.

Scenes from New York: "The Federal Emergency Management Agency has terminated $188 million in grants to New York City to care for migrants, arguing that the money is being used to support illegal immigration," reports The New York Times. In February, $80 million went missing from city bank accounts after federal authorities rescinded funding. One problem: Mayor Eric Adams says all this money has already been spent.

I'm left with a lot of questions. Why was FEMA money given to my city in the first place? Why was it not used on American citizens? How did this qualify as an emergency? And how could the city have already spent it all? Where exactly did it go?

QUICK HITS

• A very direct plea: Please do subscribe to our Just Asking Questions channel on YouTube. I know you're probably sick of my nudging, but we have some really good stuff coming out on tariffs, deportations, and due process this week and next.
• The latest Zach Weissmueller joint, on Milton Friedman (who is probably rolling over in his grave right now):

• The Trump administration is calling on migrants who entered the country under the Biden administration, and received parole protections via the CBP One app, to self-deport. "Roughly 985,000 people used the app to make appointments at a port of entry at the border, with those who entered often permitted to seek asylum and given temporary work authorization," reports The Hill.
• A bipartisan group of senators, led by Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.), whom we spoke with yesterday on Just Asking Questions, and Sen. Ron Wyden (D–Ore.) have introduced a resolution that would repeal Trump's tariffs. "Our Founders were clear: tax policy should never rest in the hands of one person. Abusing emergency powers to impose blanket tariffs not only drives up costs for American families but also tramples on the Constitution. It's time Congress reasserts its authority and restores the balance of power," said Paul. (Our episode with him comes out later today.)
• Are narratives of American decline real or imagined?

The trouble is the tariffs don't fix those other two issues, they just make it so you can no longer buy a flat-screen TV. https://t.co/fxYXdkTD6U

— Liz Wolfe (@LizWolfeReason) April 9, 2025

• Expect much more like this:

California based manufacturer says it's halting hiring, eliminating overtime, and that it's seen a massive plunge in demand in recent days pic.twitter.com/G1TiyhKCXY

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) April 9, 2025