While taxpayers and free trade proponents might be somewhat disappointed by the revised North American Free Trade Agreement, the deal is clearly a big win for big labor unions. And unions have one man in particular to thank: Peter Navarro, the top trade adviser in the White House.

Navarro’s political playbook has always been pretty straightforward: Get in tight with special interest groups (most notably, powerful labor unions) and follow their marching orders. That’s what happened with this new NAFTA agreement, and it should come as no surprise. Just look at what he wrote his 1998 memoir in which he charted out his union-centric plan to win a seat in Congress:

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