Trump adviser Navarro: lower U.S. trade deficit would boost growth

[March 06, 2017]  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's trade adviser, Peter Navarro, said on Monday that reduction of U.S. trade deficits through tough negotiations with America's trading partners will boost growth and preserve U.S. national security.

Navarro, who serves as director of the new White House National Trade Council, told a gathering of economists that if current trade trends continue, foreign interests will eventually acquire wide swaths of the U.S. economy.

"Trade deficits do matter, and they matter a great deal," Navarro said at the National Association for Business Economics' annual policy conference.

(Reporting by David Lawder)

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