U.S. President-elect Donald Trump named Peter Navarro, an economist who has urged a hard line on trade with China, to head a newly formed White House National Trade Council, the transition team said on Wednesday.
Navarro is an academic and one-time investment adviser who has authored a number of popular books and made a film describing China's threat to the U.S. economy as well as Beijing's desire to become the dominant economic and military power in Asia.
Trump's team praised Navarro in a statement as a "visionary" economist who would "develop trade policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand our growth, and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores."