Trump names Peter Navarro to lead new White House trade body

United States President-elect Donald Trump has named a fierce critic of China, Peter Navarro, to lead a new White House office overseeing American trade and industrial policy and billionaire investor Carl Icahn as a special adviser on regulatory issues.

The New York Times quoted, Trump describing Navarro in a statement as, a "visionary economist" and said he would "develop trade policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand our growth and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores".

Trump has said Navarro will designate China a currency manipulator, enforce trade laws more vigorously and impose a 45 percent tariff on Chinese imports unless Beijing changes its polices.

Navarro is a professor of economics and public policy at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

He also served in the Peace Corps in Southeast Asia and worked in Washington, D.C. as an energy and environmental policy analyst.

Navarro was a policy advisor to the Donald Trump presidential campaign.