Navarro has said that a large part of China's competitive advantage over the United States stems from unfair trade practices. Navarro has criticized China for pollution, poor labor standards, government subsidies, producing "contaminated, defective and cancerous" exports, currency manipulation, and theft of US intellectual property. In his 2012 documentary, Navarro said that China caused the loss of 57,000 US factories and 25 million jobs. Navarro has maintained that China manipulates its currency and, on August 5, 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department officially designated China as a "currency manipulator."