A new acronym to describe President Donald Trump‘s trade war tactics is gaining popularity among Wall Street investors, much to the president’s disdain.
Here’s what to know about “TACO” and tariff negotiations.
The term TACO, which stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” First coined by Financial Times commentator Robert Armstrong to describe what he says is Trump’s pattern of announcing heavy tariffs on countries causing economic shock, panic and stock market hits and then later reversing course with pauses or reductions that create a market rebound.
When asked about TACO on Wednesday by a reporter, Trump responded, “I chicken out? Oh, I’ve never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100… and then to another number?” He went on to defend his decisions to slash his tariffs on China for the next 90 days and extend his deadline for a 50% tariff on goods from the European Union until July 9.
Trump said “because I gave the European Union a 50% tax tariff, and they called up and they said ‘please lets meet right now, please let’s meet right now,’ and I said OK, I’ll give you until July.” He then clarified that they weren’t willing to meet initially, “And after I did what I did, they said, ‘we’ll meet anytime you want.’ You call that chickening out?”
“Six months ago, this country was stone cold dead. We had a dead country. We had a country that people didn’t think it was going to survive,” Trump said. “And you ask a nasty question like that. It’s called negotiation.”
“Don’t ever say what you said because that’s a nasty question,” Trump said.
After the reporter’s TACO question and Trump’s heated response, taco and chicken related memes went viral, including an old Cinco de Mayo tweet by the President himself.