Trump Fumes At Reporter Over Notion He “Chickens Out” On Tariffs

Donald Trump once again got testy with a reporter over a question, this time over a phrase being used on Wall Street over the president’s tendency to not follow through on tariff threats: the TACO trade, as in “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

The reporter noted that analysts have coined the term, and it explains why markets have been higher this week. “What’s you response to that?” she asked Trump.

“I kick out?” Trump asked.

“Chicken out,” the reporter repeated.

“I’ve never heard that,” Trump said, before arguing that his tariff policy has brought China and the European Union to the negotiating table.

“You ask a nasty question like that. It’s called negotiation. You set a number… if I set a number at a ridiculous high, I go down a little bit, they want me to hold that number. 145% tariff.” Trump said that “we were doing no business because of the tariff, because it was so high. I knew that. But don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question.”

Wall Street markets gyrated as trade between the U.S. and China came to a standstill. But after negotiations earlier this month, the U.S. lowered the tariff, at least for 90 days, to 30%, while China dropped its reciprocal tariff to 10%.

Trump was speaking to pool reporters in the Oval Office after a swearing in ceremony of Jeanine Pirro as the new interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.