Trump’s Trade Adviser Has an Imaginary Friend

Peter Navarro, President Trump’s top trade adviser, has quoted staunch China hawk “Ron Vara” more than a dozen times in at least six of his books, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

However, it turns out that Ron Vara — which is an anagram of Navarro — doesn’t actually exist.

When asked about his source, Navarro declined to speak on the record, but he did send a statement in which he called Ron Vara a “whimsical device and pen name I’ve used throughout the years for opinions and purely entertainment value, not as a source of fact.”