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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“But don’t ever say what you said. That’s a nasty question,” Trump told the reporter. “To me, that’s the nastiest question.”
Trump threatened to impose a 50% tariff on the European Union (EU) on June 1 over their lack of trade concessions during the 90-pause. The president announced on Sunday that he agreed to delay the tariff until July 9 after discussing the matter with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission.
Von der Leyen said she had a “good call” with Trump and needed more time to reach a trade deal.
Armstrong, who alleged that Trump is chickening out on tariffs, argued in The Financial Times piece that he keeps backing off from high tariffs because he does not have the tolerance for “market and economic pressure.”
The president announced the reciprocal tariffs on several countries on April 2, which he deemed “Liberation Day,” which sent shockwaves across international markets. The pause allowed room for several negotiations with foreign countries to establish fairer trade practices and to return manufacturing to the U.S.
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