WH Trade Policy Director: Tariffs Would Have 'Minimal Price Effects'

President Donald Trump's plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports would have little effect on prices, Peter Navarro, the head of the National Trade Council, said Friday on Fox News.

Navarro said that industries have put out "hyperbole" about the effect tariffs would have.

"The reality here is what President Trump said. We need an aluminum industry in this country, we need a steel industry—we need it for national security, we need it for economic security, we need it to employ manufacturing workers throughout our heartland, and this pushback here, I’m telling you … negligible price effects, minimal price effects," Navarro said.

The U.S. having the "lowest tariffs in the world" has hurt the economy, Navarro said.

"We get a half-a-trillion-dollar a year trade deficit, which is draining us dry, taking our jobs, putting them offshore, harming the workers of America, and driving down wages," Navarro said in the interview.

Navarro is being promoted within the Trump administration to the title of assistant to the president, equal in status with National Economic Council head Gary Cohn, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

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