Trump erupts in Oval Office fury after being accused of ‘chickening out’ on tariffs: ‘That’s the nastiest question’
President Donald Trump flashed his anger after getting a ‘nasty’ question about ‘chickening out’ by repeatedly threatening tariffs only to relax or postpone them.
A reporter asked Trump about a new acronym making the rounds on Wall Street about the ‘TACO trade’, which stands for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out.’ It amounts to a prediction that Trump doesn’t mean what he posts and will fold eventually when it comes to tariffs he calls ‘beautiful.’
The president denied it – then reeled off a series of times where he had lowered his initial tariff threats – while saying he got concessions due to the pressure.
‘Don’t ever say what you said,’ Trump scolded the reporter. ‘That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.’
Trump – who regularly speaks about the performance of the stock market – at first indicated he had misheard ‘chicken’ as ‘kicked out.’
‘I’ve never heard that – you mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I said, down to 100 and then down to another number. And I said, you have to open up your whole country? And because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tax – tariff – and they called up and they said, “Please, let’s meet right now. Please, let’s meet right now.” And I said, Okay, I’ll give you till June 9.’
‘I actually asked them, I said, What’s the date? Because they weren’t willing to meet. And after I did what I did, they said, we’ll meet anytime you want, and we have an end date of July 9th. You call that chickening out? Because we have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing. When Biden didn’t have practically anything.’
President Donald Trump showed obvious anger when being asked about Wall Street traders who accuse him of ‘chickening out’ on tariffs. Trump called it the’nastiest question’
The ‘Art of the Deal’ author kept going, both denying being a chicken and ripping the reporter who confronted him with the accusation.
‘This country was dying. You know, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world — Six months ago, this country was stone cold, dead. We had a dead country. We had a country people didn’t think it was going to survive. And you ask a nasty question like that.’
‘It’s called negotiation. You set a number, and if you go down, you know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number, I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit they want me to hold that number, 145 percent tariff even. I said man, that really got up.’
Despite Trump’s defense, for some Wall Street traders, his tariff threats and sudden reversals are becoming as predictable as TACO Tuesday.
That’s the new acronym that has been making the rounds among investors after the president once again threatened to impose a shock 50 percent tariff on the European Union – sending markets dropping – only to announce a sudden ‘pause’ on Sunday.
‘Trump Always Chickens Out’ is the acronym that has been proliferating online and among Trump critics on the airwaves.
There were some signs Friday that Trump’s capacity to fold was already being baked into the markets on Friday.
The S&P 500 market index dropped 0.67 percent Friday, the day Trump first made the tariff threat. That was a significant tumble, but perhaps fell short of the economic chaos that would ensue if Trump followed through with the crippling tariffs he proposed, after accusing the European Union of being ‘very difficult to deal with’ and ‘taking advantage’ of the U.S.
The ‘TACO trade’ acronym rips Trump for threatening tariffs and then backing off
‘They haven’t treated our country properly’ Trump wrote on Truth Social Friday morning. ‘They banded together to take advantage of us.’
By Sunday, following a conversation with European Union President Ursula von der Leyen, Trump announced a pause. Markets rallied when they reopened Tuesday after the long weekend, with the Dow jumping more than 700 points.
It was a similar pattern with the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs Trump announced April 2, only to announce a 90-day ‘pause’ after markets tumbled.
The acronym is being attributed to Robert Armstrong of Financial Times, who wrote in early May that a market rally ‘has a lot to do with markets realising that the US administration does not have a very high tolerance for market and economic pressure, and will be quick to back off when tariffs cause pain. This is the Taco theory: Trump Always Chickens Out.’
Trump’s pronounces cause markets to rise and fall
MSBNC’s Larry O’Donnell has tweaked Trump with the acronym
University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers mocked that it was a Trump tariff policy ‘that nearly lasted one entire long weekend’
The idea proliferated, and now Trump skeptics have been putting it to use. MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell posted a graphic of T.A.C.O. on his evening program. A parody account pictured Trump wearing a sombrero.
The New York Times wrote that stocks rallied on the ‘TACO trade,’ and University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers mocked that it was a Trump tariff policy ‘that nearly lasted one entire long weekend.’
The TACO trade, if it exists, can be seen in the 5-day chart showing the performance of the S&P 500. Stocks dropped immediately Friday on Trump’s threat (he also went after Apple over its overseas manufacturing and threatened a 25 percent tariff on the company). The index rose slightly over the course of the day. Then it jumped suddenly when trading reopened on Tuesday after the pause got announced.
