President Donald Trump's tariff policy has been highly criticized, especially for his seemingly arbitrary, up and down, in-effect and paused actions, which have led the stock markets to rise and fall—providing little stability or reassurance to manufacturers and investors alike.
"Traders are loading up and dumping stocks based on Trump’s erratic approach to announcing tariffs and then retreating on them," The New York Times reported on Wednesday.
McGill University Associate Professor Robert Rutledge, an astrophysicist, on Tuesday posted a screenshot from a New York Times article titled, "Stocks Rally on the 'TACO Trade'," which explained the phenomenon.
During Wednesday's swearing-in ceremony of Trump's interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., former Fox host Jeanine Pirro, a reporter confronted the president with remarks from analysts who have dubbed his tactics "TACO," or, "Trump Always Chickens Out."
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"Mr. President," a reporter said (video below), "Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the 'Taco Trade.' They're saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats, and that's why markets are higher this week. What's your response to that?"
After some back-and-forth, the President admitted, "I've never heard that," before growing defensive.
"You mean because I reduced China from 145%, that I set 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% tax tariff, and they called up, and they said, 'Please, let's meet right now. Please, let's meet right now.'"
Trump claimed that "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?"
He then lashed out at his predecessor, President Joe Biden, for not imposing high tariffs.
"Because we have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing, when Biden didn't have practically anything, Trump claimed, although there are few actual, finalized agreements.
"Biden, this country was dying," Trump continued. "You know, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. I went to Saudi Arabia. The king told me. He said, 'You got the hottest—We have the hottest country in the world right now.'”
"Six months ago, this country was stone cold dead," Trump alleged. "We had a dead country."
"We had a country people didn't think it was gonna survive, and you ask a nasty question like that?" he said, attacking the reporter. "It's called 'negotiation.' You set a number. And if you go down, you know set a number at
After explaining his China policy, he again attacked, telling the reporter, "don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question."
"For me, that's the nastiest question."
Economist Justin Wolfers on Tuesday explained some of the ramifications of "TACO."
"Those truck drivers ... won't have goods to truck across the country, they also won't be stopping a gas stations to buy a sandwich. And then the sandwich demand falls off and on and on it goes. But I think it's actually the effects are far deeper than that," Wolfers explained.
"There's an asset here that really matters called 'American credibility.' There was a time when the President opened his mouth when you had to pay attention, because you thought it meant something, that it was a shift in policy that other countries could rely on and respond to. That's no longer the case."
After specifically mentioning TACO, Wolfers continued with more examples. He noted, for example, "there's a factory that could be built, except that one of the most important imports we get from the European Union is precision machinery. And that either just went up 50% or went up 10%, but no one can be sure."
Critics blasted the President for his Oval Office remarks.
Democratic strategist Keith Edwards mocked Trump, saying that he "just learned Wall Street is calling his tariffs 'TACO trade' ('Trump Always Chickens Out') — and you have to watch his meltdown."
The political action committee Really American called it "an insane moment," noting that Trump had "a complete meltdown."
"What’s hilarious about this whole thing is there has to be people in the admin who know about this stuff and everyone is afraid to tell him bad news," noted Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko. " So we get to see him lose his s--- for the first time live on tv."Watch the video below.
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