The United States seems to be losing the ill-conceived Trump-Navarro trade war. The evidence of this loss continues to mount.

Here is an important Bloomberg catalog of specific facts and items and actions. (Note that this is not “fake news.”) “These Products Show How Hard It’ll Be to Beat China in Trade War”.

Meanwhile, Peter Navarro is doing a creditable job of shooting himself (and the country) in the foot. In POLITICO’s Morning Money for Nov. 12, POLITICO’s Doug Palmer reports,

“White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Friday accused Wall Street ‘globalist billionaires’ of trying to sabotage … Trump’s handling of trade relations with China. ‘Consider the shuttle diplomacy that is now going on by a self-appointed group of Wall Street bankers and hedge fund managers between the U.S. and China,’ Navarro said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“ ‘As part of the Chinese government influence operations, globalist billionaires are putting a full-court press on the White House in advance of the G-20 in Argentina. The mission of these unregistered foreign agents … is to pressure this president into some kind of a deal,’ he said. The blustery language came ahead of a planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month, which many hope will lead to a de-escalation of trade tensions. However, Navarro seemed to downplay chances for major progress at the upcoming meeting.”

Business Insider agrees with our assessment of the Trump-Navarro actions on trade and offers what it calls “the best hard evidence yet that the tariffs are causing major disruptions in the economy.” In an article titled “Trump’s trade war took a stunning bite out of the US economy, and it’s the strongest evidence yet that he’s shooting himself in the foot,” BI points to last week’s report on third-quarter US GDP and makes the point that while GDP growth came in at 3.5%, that figure would have been a whopping 5.3% if trade had not dragged it down by 1.9% – the largest negative contribution to GDP growth for trade in 33 years.