Peter Navarro, one of President Donald Trump’s top trade advisors, said the market was overreacting to fears the administration would restrict foreign investment as part of its trade actions against China and other countries.
Navarro told CNBC that the administration currently does not have any specific countries targeted, despite news reports that had Wall Street reeling over the prospect of preventing companies that had at least 25 percent Chinese ownership from buying businesses that possessed “industrially significant technology.
“There’s no plans to impose investment restrictions on any countries that are interfering in any way with our country. This is not the plan,” he said.
Though Navarro’s statement seemed to counteract much of the talk that the U.S. was ready to take another step in its trade regime, markets reacted little. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was still down more than 400 points just before the closing bell.
