Donald Trump's major economic speech Monday was the "Reagan revolution of the 21st century," Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro said Monday.
The Republican presidential nominee laid out his economic plan in an address Monday, focusing on taxes, trade, energy and regulatory policy.
Trump raised his top income tax rate to 33 percent, after previously saying he would have a top rate of 25 percent. The current rate is nearly 40 percent.
Among other things, he also pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and stop the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Navarro, a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine, said too many American jobs have been lost, pointing out that the U.S. has an auto trade deficit of $52 billion with Mexico.
"Those are jobs that could be here in Michigan if we were sensible about tax policy, tariff policy, trade policy," he said in an interview with CNBC's "Power Lunch."
Howard Lorber, also a member of Trump's economic advisory council, agreed that Trump's plan is about creating jobs and unleashing the economy.
And he said Trump's change of heart on the top tax rate was about being realistic about not creating a big deficit.
"These will still be probably the biggest tax decreases since the Reagan era and we need it to get the country going again," the CEO of Vector Group told "Closing Bell."
As for Trump's plans to renegotiate trade treaties, Lorber said that doesn't mean the billionaire is against trade.
"He wants fair trade," he said. "He's a negotiator. He's a deal guy. Only a deal person knows how to try to get there."
Navarro agreed, calling Trump "a free trader just like Ronald Reagan was."
"The Trump trade doctrine is this: No trade deal unless it increases our GDP growth rate, decreases our trade deficit, strengthens our manufacturing base."
He also defended Trump's threats to impose tariffs on goods imported to the U.S, calling the threats a "negotiating tool," not an "end game."
Jared Bernstein, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden, took issue with Trump's plan.
"The problem with a lot of what I heard today is that the numbers just don't add up," Bernstein told "Power Lunch."
While the shift to a 33 percent top tax rate from 25 percent helps, it isn't enough, he said.
"So instead of losing $10 trillion, he'll lose less than that. But he'll still lose trillions of dollars over 10 years," said Bernstein.
And with all the comparisons to Reagan, Bernstein pointed out that under Reagan, the national debt ballooned from around 25 percent to 40 percent.
"We're already north of 70 percent. We can't do that again," he said.