(The Hill) – There’s a new trade on Wall Street: the TACO trade, standing for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”
The term was coined by Robert Armstrong, a writer for the Financial Times, and is intended to capture how markets have fallen on President Donald Trump’s vow to impose steep tariffs on imports to the United States and then jump back up when Trump announces pauses on those tariffs.
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Most recently, on Friday, Trump vowed to impose a 50% tariff on goods from the European Union, causing markets to fall.
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On Sunday, he said he had a “good call” with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and that he was giving the EU until July 9 to reach a deal with the U.S.
Markets reacted positively to that news on Tuesday: The Dow Jones was up 721 points, or 1.73%, as of 2:30 p.m. EDT Tuesday. Markets were closed in the U.S. on Monday for Memorial Day.
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Stocks previously gyrated when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, falling precipitously until Trump said those tariffs would also be on hold.
Markets rose further when the president said he would lower tariffs on China after initially warning of triple-digit tariffs.
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The trend has become so pronounced that financial analysts in advance are warning that Trump’s tariff threats shouldn’t be taken as gospel.
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“The TACO trade engages once again,” stated the headline on Monday’s episode of the “Saxo Market Call” podcast, as markets around the world reacted favorably to the EU pause.
“It’s a new week and we have the latest example of what an FT columnist has called the TACO trade engaging once again: Trump Always Chickens Out,” the podcast description reads. “In this case, it was Trump’s announcement late yesterday to delay the threat to slap 50% tariffs on the EU already to July 9 rather than June 1 (which he threatened on Friday).”
