Trump Gives Lesson On Negotiation Tactics To Reporter Who Asked ‘Nasty Question’ About His Tariff Strategy

President Donald Trump retorted a reporter’s “nasty question” on whether he is “chickening out” on tariff policy during a Wednesday event.

A CNBC reporter asked about The Financial Times’ columnist Robert Armstrong coining the term, “Trump Always Chickens Out” (TACO trade), which criticizes Trump’s on-and-off again tariff threats. The president aggressively pushed back at the idea that he is chickening out by explaining that tariffs change through negotiating fair trade policies.

“You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number and said ‘you have to open up your whole country’ and because gave the European Union a 50% tariff and they called up and said ‘please, let’s meet right now.’ And I said ‘okay,’ I actually asked them, I said ‘what’s the date?’ Because they weren’t willing to meet and after I did what I did, they said ‘we’ll meet anytime you want.’ And we have an end date of July 9. You call that chickening out? … It’s called negotiation. You set a number.”

Trump announced a 90-day pause on all reciprocal tariffs except for China, where he raised tariffs from 104% to 145% on April 10 over the country’s retaliation. Following negotiations with China, Trump agreed to lower the tariffs from 145% to 30%, while China’s retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. dropped from 125% to 10%.

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