Trump lashes out at claim he’s a ‘chicken’ when it comes to trade

A financial analyst coined the acronym TACO, which stands for "Trump Always Chickens Out."

U.S. President Donald Trump may be many things, but he wants the world to know he’s no “chicken” when it comes to fiscal policy, despite what appears to be a tendency to recoil in the face of resistance from economic partners and foes — a behaviour financial analysts have coined “TACO” trade.

The president’s propensity to threaten and then momentarily impose outrageous import taxes on U.S. trade partners, only to retreat when met with retaliation, paved the way for the acronym created by the Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong.

It stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” and has come to encapsulate what Trump says is a legitimate form of negotiation. Under conditions created by his erratic manoeuvres, markets tend to sell off when a new tariff threat emerges and then recover after the president backs down.

When asked about the unfavourable phrase during a press conference in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the president appeared offended and rejected the notion that he has made a habit of backing out of deals.

“You call that chickening out?” Trump said. “It’s called negotiation.”

The author of The Art of the Deal added that he sets a “ridiculous high number and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit,” doubling down on his position that it’s an effective bargaining strategy.

“Six months ago, this country was stone-cold dead, we had a dead country, we had a country that people didn’t think was going to survive, and you ask a nasty question like that,” he added.

Trump defended his decision to raise tariffs on China to 145 per cent, only to reduce them to 30 per cent for 90 days during negotiations. Similarly, last week, he threatened to impose 50 per cent levies on goods from the European Union as of June — but swiftly delayed the start date until July 9 for negotiations, while the 10 per cent continues.