This new nickname must become everyone's motto — because it will drive Trump crazy
29 May
U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters aboard Air Force One, en-route to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, May 15, 2025. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Wall Street traders, who are almost feral in sniffing out patterns in which to make money, are using the term coined by Financial Times columnist Neil Armstrong, “the TACO trade”— which stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out”—regarding Trump threatening tariffs, sending the markets plummeting, only to back down later, causing markets to rise.
Trump became agitated yesterday in the Oval Office when a reporter asked him about TACO . At first, he was bewildered, not seeming to know about it, but soon he became angry, calling it a “nasty question.” That’s how you know something is true, when Trump is exposed— humiliated about the truth surfacing—and soon becomes furious.
We can all learn from the market traders and from China and others beating Trump at his own game. In fact, TACO should be a motto—and an ad campaign—for Democrats, because it’s both empowering to those taking on Trump, and it also gets under his skin big time.
There’s no question Trump is engaged in mass corruption and destruction to our democracy, causing what is seemingly irreparable harm. But Trump is also losing a lot too.
Those two things can be true at once. I don’t have to go through all the ways Trump is engaged in corruption—from crypto dinners to pardons—and the ways he’s taken a sledgehammer to our democracy. We’re all seeing it happen every day.
At the same time, those who’ve chosen to fight Trump rather than capitulate find it’s the only way to respond, and they’re often winning. Trying to strike a deal with Trump—as Columbia University and some law firms did—only has him extorting you further, like the mob, as former FBI director James Comey put it last week. Trump is a classic narcissist who doesn’t really believe in striking “a deal.” That involves give and take, calibration and compromise, with both sides coming out on top or able to tell their supporters that.
Trump doesn’t want compromise, and always wants to be the only winner. He wants domination, and once he knows he can dominate you—such as when you agree to his supposed “deal”—he will keep dominating you, as Columbia and the cowardly law firms are finding out. He now wants to control Columbia’s entire curriculum, and he’s making the law firms that struck “deals” with him represent shady MAGA clients, after they agreed to give him and his “causes” billions in pro bono work.
So the only way is to fight him—you have nothing to lose and everything to gain—because more often not he caves in, or is a dealt a blow in court, as happened with three with law firms in recent weeks that said no to him.
China, unlike some other countries, refused to bow to Trump, and retaliated with tariffs. As it escalated dramatically, it was Trump who backed down, dropping the 145% tariffs, with China making no concessions of any kind. TACO was in play.
Even Vladimir Putin, in a terrible example, knows how to play Trump, aware that Trump would never get tough. So far, horribly, it’s TACO again.
Those who fought Trump have also often won in court. Trump had a series of losses in recent days, including the stunning defeat at the U.S. Court of International Trade yesterday. The three-judge panel—an Obama appointee, a Reagan appointee, and Trump appointee—unanimously threw out most of his tariffs. The administration is, of course, appealing, but the states and businesses that brought cases have had a big win, and legal experts believe that the Supreme Court will uphold the ruling.
There was no way that Trump’s using emergency powers granted by Congress decades ago to impose tariffs for an unlimited amount of time was constitutional. But unless you decide to fight it, a court won’t declare it.
The universities and law firms that capitulated to Trump worried they’d suffer losses if they didn’t. Yet, their reputations are now in tatters, a major loss. And the law firms have lost major clients, and are losing attorneys, who are leaving for other firms or starting their own firms. Meanwhile, Harvard has the public behind it in its fight, and the law firms that fought Trump are empowering others.
Trump’s goal, again, is domination, not negotiation and compromise. China and others learned that if you push back, he folds. So, we all should learn from the Wall Street traders’ shorthand—”Trump Always Chickens Out.” It empowers more of us to fight—including major institutions with power and influence, which we need on our side—and it drives Trump crazy.
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