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The White House’s chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, bashed the White House’s chief China economic hawk, Peter Navarro, on CNBC Tuesday. The clash lays bare two of the ways the Trump White House likes to do business: accusing its critics of abetting America’s enemies and doing the bidding of corporate executives who happen to be the president’s personal friends.

Kudlow told CNBC Tuesday that Navarro, in his recent comments denouncing executives who have tried to influence trade policy, was “not speaking for the president” and that Navarro’s remarks were “way off base” and “not authorized.” Kudlow said that Navarro had done the president a “great disservice.” Kudlow, however, confirmed that Trump does speak to “people on Wall Street” and “other outside advisers” about policy. “Peter very badly misspoke. He was freelancing,” Kudlow said.

On Friday, White House trade advisor Navarro said any new China trade deal would be on Trump's terms, not Wall Street's. Today, WH economic adviser Kudlow said, "Peter very badly misspoke... He's not representing the president or the administration." https://t.co/0CsTHpzN21

— CNBC (@CNBC) November 13, 2018

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Navarro, the protectionist academic who joined the Trump campaign after Jared Kushner searched for books about China and found his alarmist tract Death by China, criticized Wall Street and other corporate executives in a speech last week for lobbying for a less aggressive trade stance against China. Navarro said “globalist billionaires” were conducting “shuttle diplomacy” as part of “Chinese government influence operations” to persuade the White House to strike a trade deal with China that would not address the full range of ways Navarro thinks China abuses the United States economically. He mentioned Goldman Sachs but didn’t cite any executives by name.

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Many interpreted the speech as a dig at Hank Paulson, the former treasury secretary and Goldman chief who, since leaving office, has become something of a private diplomat on U.S.-China relations. Politico also speculated that Navarro could be referring to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is also a former Goldman executive and is widely seen as more dovish on trade than hard-liners like Navarro. Mnuchin has had recent meetings with Chinese officials to try to start working on a deal.

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Navarro’s suspicions about China are not pure paranoia. Several of Trump’s corporate executive buddies, including private equity titan Stephen Schwarzman, are reportedly lobbying the president on trade. The Wall Street Journal also reported that Paulson and Henry Kissinger “have been meeting with Chinese leaders” in advance of Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

U.S. intelligence officials even suspect that China is trying to spy on Trump’s calls with his businessman friends in order to work out his strategy in trade negotiations. The Times also reported that Chinese intelligence has “pieced together a list of the people with whom Mr. Trump regularly speaks in hopes of using them to influence the president,” which includes Schwarzman and Steve Wynn, the disgraced former casino bigwig and Republican donor.

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“The Chinese have identified friends of both men and others among the president’s regulars, and are now relying on Chinese businessmen and others with ties to Beijing to feed arguments to the friends of the Trump friends,” the Times reported.

Trump and Xi are expected to meet at the G-20 summit in Buenos Aires starting at the end of the month. Axios reported in October that Trump “has no intention of easing his tariffs on China” and that “his team doesn’t expect much from the tentatively planned meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines.” Navarro is hoping Trump’s buddies don’t talk him out of that.

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Vice President Mike Pence told the Washington Post that some kind of agreement is possible at the G-20 but that China needs to bring “concrete proposals” that go beyond the trade deficit between the two countries. Pence also wants China to address the disagreements over intellectual property rights that U.S. companies have to give up to operate in China, as well as broader access to Chinese markets and more geopolitical issues like alleged Chinese influence operations in Western countries. “We really believe we are in a strong position either way,” Pence told the Post. “We are at $250 billion [in tariffs] now; we can more than double that.”

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