Donald Trump has angrily dismissed claims that he “always chickens out” on his tariff threats.
Buffeted by the White House’s flip-flopping, Wall Street traders have coined an acronym to describe their investing strategy: Taco (Trump always chickens out).
Some traders are making millions of dollars from the approach, by increasing bets on stocks that fall when Mr Trump announces harsh tariffs, only to then recover when he backs down.
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But asked about “the Taco trade”, the president lashed out and claimed his approach was working.
“Six months ago, this country was stone-cold dead. We had a dead country, we had a country – people didn’t think it was going to survive. And you ask a nasty question like that,” he told a journalist.
“It’s called negotiation … But don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question. To me, that’s the nastiest question.”
Later in the press conference, he added: “They will say, ‘oh, he was chicken, he was chicken’, that’s so unbelievable.
“I usually have the opposite problem. They say you’re too tough.”
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Since coming to office in late January, Mr Trump has imposed costly tariffs on all of the US’s biggest trading partners and accused those who have a net trade surplus of taking advantage of America.
He has also argued that his heavy taxes on steel, cars and other products will help stimulate a domestic manufacturing revival as foreign firms are forced to relocate factories to the US.
However, the president has also made a habit of threatening huge levies – sending stock markets into a tailspin – only to back down just days or weeks later.
For example, last Friday Mr Trump lashed out at the European Union, claiming negotiations with the bloc were “going nowhere”, and vowed to impose tariffs of 50pc from June 1. His comments sent shares tumbling.
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But by Sunday Mr Trump had pushed back the deadline to July 9 following a phone call with top EU figures. This caused US stocks to rally on Tuesday when markets reopened following the Memorial Day holiday.
Similarly, at one point the president imposed 145pc tariffs on China for a “lack of respect” and predicted that Beijing would back down.
However, after the Chinese government retaliated with tit-for-tat measures – and top supermarket bosses warned Mr Trump that American stores faced empty shelves – he later agreed to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods to 30pc following negotiations.
Challenged on Wall Street’s “Taco” acronym on Wednesday, Mr Trump defended his policies.
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“[They say] that I chicken out? I’ve never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145pc, that I set down to 100pc, and then to another number, and I said ‘you have to open up your whole country’?
“And because I gave the European Union a 50pc tariff, and they called up and said ‘please, let’s meet right now’?
“You call that chickening out?”
The comments came just hours ahead of a decision by the US Court of International Trade on Wednesday which ruled that Mr Trump did not have the authority to impose his “liberation day” tariffs using emergency powers.