Peter Navarro, President Donald Trump‘s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, argued that the president’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports are meant to hold countries accountable for abusing exemptions the United States has given to other countries.

Navarro defended Trump’s tariffs both for their own sake and as a negotiating tactic. He lamented that the United States runs a $1 trillion trade deficit, which he said is equivalent to transferring that amount of money from the U.S. to other countries each year.