Trump Shares Blunt Reaction To 'TACO' Charge That Says He 'Always Chickens Out' On Tariff Threats

Forbes Breaking News

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked about Wall Street analysts saying he "always chickens out" on tariff threats.

Transcript

00:00Mr. President, Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the taco trade.

00:04They're saying Trump always chickens out on the tariff threats, and that's why markets are higher this week.

00:09What's your response to that?

00:10I kick out?

00:11Chicken out.

00:12Oh, isn't that a chicken out? I've never heard that.

00:15You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number?

00:22And I said, you have to open up your whole country, and because I gave the European Union a 50% tax tariff,

00:33and they called up and they said, please, let's meet right now. Please, let's meet right now.

00:39And I said, okay, I'll give you till June 9th.

00:41I actually asked them, I said, what's the date? Because they weren't willing to meet.

00:45And after I did what I did, they said, we'll meet anytime you want.

00:49And we have an end date of July 9th.

00:54You call that chickening out?

00:55Because we have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing,

01:00when Biden didn't have practically anything.

01:03Biden, this country was dying.

01:05You know, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.

01:07I went to Saudi Arabia, the king told me.

01:10He said, you got the hottest company.

01:11We have the hottest country in the world right now.

01:14Six months ago, this country was stone cold dead.

01:17We had a dead country.

01:19We had a country people didn't think it was going to survive.

01:22And you ask a nasty question like that.

01:25It's called negotiation.

01:26You set a number.

01:28And if you go down, you know, if I set a number at a ridiculous high number,

01:31and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit,

01:34they want me to hold that number, 145% tariff.

01:38Even I said, man, that really got up.

01:41You know how it got?

01:42Because of fentanyl and many other things.

01:44And you added it up.

01:46I said, where are we now?

01:47We're at 145%.

01:48I said, whoa, that's high.

01:50That's high.

01:51They were doing no business whatsoever.

01:53And they were having a lot of problems.

01:54We were very nice to China.

01:56I don't know if they're going to be nice to us,

01:57but we were very nice to China.

01:59And in many ways, I think we really helped China tremendously.

02:03Because, you know, they were having great difficulty.

02:05Because we were basically going cold turkey with China.

02:08We were doing no business because of the tariff,

02:10because it was so high.

02:11But I knew that.

02:14But don't ever say what you said.

02:16That's a nasty question.

02:17Go ahead.

02:18To me, that's the nastiest question.

02:20Wait a minute.

02:21Wait.

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