President Donald Trump shot back Wednesday at a new term coined by a Financial Times columnist suggesting he is backing down on his tariff policy when he postpones or reduces initial levies after a stock market slump.
A reporter asked Trump in an Oval Office news conference that aired live on the Newsmax2 free online streaming platform about the acronym TACO, which stands for how "Trump always chickens out" on tariff threats following a stock market slump, with a pause or tariff reduction leading to a market surge. The president referred to the question as "nasty."
"Chicken out, I never heard that," Trump said, shaking his head. "You mean because I reduced China from 145% [tariffs] 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% tariff and they called up and they said please, let's meet right now.
"I actually asked them. I said, what's the date because they weren't willing to meet, and after I did what I did they said, we'll meet anytime you want. And we have an end date of July 9. You call that chickening out? Because we have $14 trillion now committed to investing when [President Joe] Biden practically didn't have anything.
"This country was dying. You know, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. … Six months ago, this country was stone, cold dead. We had a dead country, a country people didn't think would survive, and you ask a nasty question like that."
Trump in April imposed sweeping reciprocal tariffs on almost all U.S. trading partners, which rankled the financial markets, only to pause them for 90 days, with a baseline of 10% tariffs remaining in place. The markets responded positively to the pause. He also raised tariffs to 145% on China, again rankling the markets, before delaying those for 90 days to give China time to reach a trade agreement.
Trump's tariffs on many Canadian and Mexican imports remain in place to pressure those countries to crack down on fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration, plus 25% tariffs on imports of steel, aluminum, and automobiles and auto parts.
He said last week he would impose a 50% tariff on the EU starting in June. But days later, he delayed those until July 9 while the sides held talks. The market responded positively this week.
"It's called negotiation," Trump said. "You know, if I set a ridiculously high number and I go down a little bit, they want me to hold that number; 145% tariff [on China], even I said, man, that really got up. You know how it got up? Because of fentanyl and many other things and you added it up.
"I said, where are we now? We're at 145%. I said, whoa, that's high. They were doing no business whatsoever. They were having a lot of problems. We were very nice to China. I don't know if they are going to be nice to us, [but] we're very nice to China.
"And in many ways, I think we really helped China tremendously because you know they were having great difficulty because we were basically going cold turkey with China. We were doing no business because of the tariff because it was so high. But I knew that. But don't ever say what you said. That's a nasty question. To me, that's the nastiest question."
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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