Donald Trump’s tariff guru Peter Navarro was mocked with the bizarre nickname “Ron Vara” by Elon Musk Tuesday—and the reason why is even weirder.
Navarro, 75, has long advocated for tariffs, but has not always been so ubiquitously on television to get his point across. He was busted in 2019 for repeatedly quoting a Harvard-educated economist in books and in a White House memo that did not actually exist.
That economics expert, “Ron Vara,” was revealed to be Navarro’s alter ego. The name is even an anagram of his surname.
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The scandal was unearthed by the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2019, which forced a publishing company to add an advisory note to future copies of a 2011 book co-authored by Navarro, Death by China, to make note of the glaring fabrication.
The Chronicle was tipped off by Tessa Morris-Suzuki, an Australian academic who read Navarro’s book and wanted to write about anti-China rhetoric for a foreign affairs blog. Vara, an Ivy League graduate like Navarro, sounded like the perfect source, she said. But when she googled his name, it became obvious he simply did not exist. Her hunch was confirmed after she phoned Harvard and was told it had no record of a Ron Vara ever attending.
“I just looked him up online, assuming he might be some businessman or other, and then he wasn’t there,” she told the CNN. “The more I looked, the more I thought this was really strange.
“Then I realized the anagram.”
Navarro conceded he lied in a statement, but claimed Ron Vara was a “whimsical device and pen name” he uses purely for “entertainment value.” He has not used the name for such purposes ever since, it appears, and another book’s co-author said he was unaware Navarro had fabricated a key source, adding that he was not OK with it.
Navarro downplayed the scandal and claimed in a statement it was actually “refreshing that somebody finally figured out an inside joke that has been hiding in plain sight for years.” Vara is quoted in at least six of Navarro’s books.
The Chronicle’s reporting at the time brought attention to a memo—penned by “Ron Vara”—that circulated at the White House in 2019.
Navarro, as Vara, wrote in the memo that import duties “are working to defend [the] economy and have had no negative impacts on growth or stock market rise.” He also claimed that tariffs “spur growth by improving Net Exports in [the] GDP equation.”
He also wrote the Trump administration should “get uncertainty out of the market by announcing NO deal until after the election and ride the tariffs to victory.” That memo was from Trump’s first term, but MAGA 2.0 appears to be operating off the “Ron Vara” playbook yet again.
Navarro’s deceit went viral this month after MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow grilled the Trump adviser in prime time for resorting to an alter ego to convince his peers—and perhaps the president—to heed his advice.
“Navarro invented Ron Vara as his expert source, so he could quote this expert source over and over and over again in his crackpot books,” she said. “Who is Ron Vara? Ron Vara is an anagram of Navarro, which is his last name. I mean, my name anagrams to Macho Wattler, but I don’t see myself trying to talk you into doing what Macho Wattler wants, right?”
That segment has Ron Vara’s legend resurfacing at unpleasant time for Trump and Navarro, as they try to justify the need for tariffs as the markets—and, as a result, Americans’ retirement portfolios—take a heavy beating. Even Elon Musk, another top adviser to Trump, has used the alter ego as way to poke holes in Navarro’s credibility as the pair clash over tariffs.
Navarro alleged in a Fox News segment that Musk’s opposition to tariffs are because the Tesla CEO is a car salesman dependent on foreign parts to make a profit.
Musk says not so much.
“By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content,” he posted Tuesday. “Navarro should ask the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara.”
That insult was somewhat tame compared to the world’s richest man’s other posts about Navarro on Tuesday. Musk also posted Navarro was “dumber than a sack of bricks” and called him “Peter Retarrdo” in an apparent reference to the slur “retard.”
