Trump Short-Circuits Over Wall Street's 'TACO' Slogan: 'Trump Always Chickens Out'

“Mr. President, 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?” a reporter asked during a White House briefing on Wednesday.

Investors are reportedly using “TACO Trade” to refer to Trump’s pattern of announcing huge tariffs, causing the markets to plummet, then reversing course days later, causing the markets to rise.

Trump seemed unaware of the mockery on Wall Street and rambled in response.

“Oh, isn’t that — I chicken out, I’ve never heard that,” Trump replied. “You mean because I reduced China from 145%, [then] I said down to 100, then down to another number? And I said you have to open up your whole country and because, I, 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.’ ... You call that chickening out?”

Trump was referring to his announcement that he would impose a 50% tariff on imports from the European Union, only to back away from his threat days later and cause a market whiplash.

“This country was dying,” Trump continued. “You know, we have the hottest country anywhere else in the world. I went to Saudi Arabia, the king told me, he said, ‘You got the—’ we have the hottest country in the world right now. Six months ago, this country was stone-cold dead. We had a dead country. We had a country we didn’t think was going to survive, and you ask a nasty question like that.”

Trump defended his tariff threats by saying, “It’s called negotiations,” and went on to claim that the U.S. has been “very nice to China.”

As usual, he ended his rant by attacking the reporter who had asked the question.

“But don’t ever say what you said,” Trump warned. “That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”