President Donald Trump, known for the colorful nicknames he bestows on others, called the Wall Street nickname sparked by his trade policy “nasty.”
A Financial Times columnist dubbed Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs as the TACO trade, an acronym that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” Asked about the nickname on Wednesday, Trump said he hadn’t heard of it, but called it nasty.
“I’ve never heard that. 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?” Trump said. “And because I gave the European Union a 50% tariff and they called up and said, ‘Please let’s meet right now."”
“You call that chickening out?” Trump said.
Trump touted the investments he has secured and said he was simply negotiating trade deals.
Trump has made tariffs the centerpiece of his foreign policy efforts in his second term. He has repeatedly announced tariffs only to suspend them days or sometimes hours later. it started in February with Trump threatening to put 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Trump later reversed course after reaching limited deals with those neighboring countries.
The biggest switch was on his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, when he announced higher reciprocal tariffs on dozens of nations. Seven days later, he suspended those higher rates for 90 days to give his trade team more time to make deals. He also backed off 145% tariffs on China after a weekend of talks. So far, Trump has kept a 30% tariff on imports from China. He also kept in place a 10% baseline tariff for all imports.
“But don’t ever say what you said,” Trump told the reporter. “That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”
Economists, businesses and some publicly traded companies have warned that tariffs could raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.
Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families, and pay down the national debt.
