President Donald Trump was confronted with an acronym pointed at his trade policies this week — and while it may sound tasty, the phrase appeared to leave a bad taste in the president’s mouth.
“TACO trade,” which stands for “Trump always chickens out,” was coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong but has since spread across Wall Street and the internet, mocking the president’s back-and-forth on tariff policies.
The sentiment behind the phrase is that despite levying steep tariffs against countries, specifically China and European Union nations, Trump has repeatedly pushed back deadlines, lowered tariff percentages and backed off from initial demands, according to Armstrong.
Investors engage in “TACO trade” by buying stocks at lower costs after Trump announces new tariffs or increases them, then reap the benefits when the markets rebound as he delays or backs off of them.
While fielding questions from reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, a reporter asked for Trump’s reaction to the now-viral Wall Street jab.
“Oh, I chicken out? Isn’t that nice? I’ve never heard that,” Trump said.
The president went on to defend his decision to slash the tariffs on China for 90 days and push back the deadline for 50% tariffs on European Union countries until July 9.
“You call that chickening out?” Trump asked, appearing visibly agitated by the question, which he called “nasty.”
“I think we really helped China tremendously because, you know, they were having great difficulty because we were basically going cold turkey with China,” the president continued. “We were doing no business because of the tariff, because it was so high. But I knew that.”
“Don’t ever say what you said,” Trump told the reporter. “That’s a nasty question.”
Trump’s tariffs, announced in April on what the president called “Liberation Day,” overturned decades of U.S. trade policy, disrupted global commerce and left the stock market in a state of flux.
The legality of Trump’s sweeping tariffs, however, are in legal limbo after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that Trump overstepped his authority when he invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to declare a national emergency and justify the global levies.
The Trump administration appealed the decision on Thursday, with the court temporarily delaying the judges’ order.
The court has set a briefing schedule through June 9.
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