Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Outnumbered,” while discussing President-elect Donald Trump’s trade policy and the pick of Peter Navarro, author of “Death by China,” to head Trump’s new White House National Trade Council, Washington Times opinion page editor Charles Hurt said Trump allowing himself to be “perceived as a madman is crucial to the art of the deal.”
Hurt said, “Peter Navarro is also going to raise a lot of eyebrows especially on the Republican side…A lot of people, a lot of conservative Republicans in Washington are really worried about the issue of trade and whether Donald Trump is going to be a protectionist. I mean, if you listen to the way he campaigned, he could sort of fall into either category. I happen to sort of think that a guy like that is not going to be anti-trade completely, that it’s somewhere in the middle.”
Host Kennedy inserted, “What must China be thinking, Charlie? And we’ve talked about the madman doctrine and whether or not Trump is trying to seem like an unpredictable, crazy person. And with a pick like Peter Navarro who have been so vocal, is such a vocal opponent to the Chinese model of trade, that they must be going what are the next four years going to be like for us?”
Hurt added, “I think being perceived as a madman is crucial to the art of the deal. And Donald Trump, obviously, operates like that. And the Chinese have to understand that.”
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