Trump adviser Peter Navarro and 'economics expert Ron Vara' are same person, NYT reported in 2019

In April 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was enacting a massive round of tariffs, or taxes on imported goods, on practically all foreign countries. The decision was controversial, to say the least.

After the tariff announcement, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow's show ran a segment aiming to explain the origins of the tariffs and argue against their implementation. During the segment, Maddow made a bold claim: Peter Navarro, a Trump economic adviser known for supporting anti-China and pro-tariff policies, had repeatedly cited an expert who did not exist to justify his positions. The allegedly fictional expert's name was "Ron Vara" — an anagram of "Navarro." According to the Maddow segment, Navarro used the Ron Vara pseudonym as a source in several of his books, and published a pro-tariff memo under the name.

Clips of the segment went viral on social media and Snopes readers wrote in asking if the story was true.

It was, according to The New York Times. Navarro's books do occasionally feature references to a "Ron Vara," the Times reported, and Navarro confirmed he authored a pro-tariff memo under that name in 2019. (There was no evidence that Navarro had used the Ron Vara pseudonym in direct connection with Trump's 2025 tariff announcements, but he remained an economic adviser to Trump and publicly defended the 2025 tariffs under his own name.)

https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/09/peter-navarro-pseudonym-ron-vara/