President Trump on Wednesday bristled when asked about a new Wall Street term based on his tendency to reverse his tariff threats, defending his approach and dismissing the question as “nasty.”
A reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office about what was dubbed by a Financial Times columnist as the “TACO” trade, an acronym that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
“I’ve never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set down to 100, and then down to another number, and I said you have to open up your whole country?” Trump said. “And because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tariff and they called up and said, ‘Please let’s meet right now.’”
“You call that chickening out?” Trump said.
The president touted the trillions of dollars in investments pledged by Middle Eastern countries during his recent trip there and defended his whiplash approach to tariffs as an effective negotiating tool.
“But don’t ever say what you said,” Trump told the reporter. “That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened tariffs in recent months, only to pull back days later. He initially threatened tariffs on Mexico and Canada in early February, but ultimately delayed imposing them.
Trump imposed sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of nations on April 2, but one week later announced there would be a 90-day reprieve where the tariffs were lowered to 10 percent.
More recently, he said last week he would impose a 50 percent tariff on the European Union starting in June. But days later, he announced he would delay those tariffs until July 9 while the two sides held talks.
Administration officials have framed the approach as a way to bring other countries to the negotiating table. But with the “TACO” trade, investors have started to expect the president to ultimately back off some of his most significant threats.
