And we know in practice that Trump TACOs out rather than pick real fights with established powers. Markets don't like it when regulatory agencies go rogue vs. the rule of law. They'll just shift gears to something else.
Trump Always Chickens Out (TACO) is a term that gained prominence in May 2025 after many threats and reversals during the trade war U.S. president Donald Trump initiated with his administration's "Liberation Day" tariffs.
The charitable explanation is that he chickens out when confronted with real backlash.The less charitable explanation is that he 'chickens' out after the appropriate bribe has been paid to him.
1. That's transparently NOT what the white house said the tariffs were for.
2. There has been NO significant change (via negotiation or not) in non-tariff trade policy under this administration. Essentially all those "announcements" of "deals" were, were just the acts of rolling back the tariffs themselves. No one caved. We didn't get any advantage.
It's just absolutely amazing to me the degree of epistemological isolation the right has created for it in the modern US.
Trump administration officials had indicated that they developed contingency plans to attempt to reinstate levies in the event of this outcome. CNN reported that Trump called this ruling a “disgrace” and said he had a backup plan for tariffs.