Daniel Torok / White House
Trump Always Chickens Out – Trump always ends up backing down. This is at least the fifth time this has happened. But there are examples to the contrary.
Alexandra Leitão recovered this acronym: Donald Trump returned to “TACO doctrine” with the strong threats against Iran made in recent days.
“He, in fact, is a bully who says some things, but doesn’t do them, which undermines his position. When the time comes, either give him more time, or don’t follow through with what he promised”, commented the socialist, on .
TACO is the acronym for Trump Always Chickens Out – “Trump always ends up scared”, or “Trump always retreats”, something like that.
In this “psychiatric dimension”, as Leitão describes it, last week Trump even said that he would eliminate an “entire civilization” if Iran did not reach an agreement; this after spending several days demanding that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, with a deadline that was later postponed.
Threaten and retreat. And it has happened at least four other times, in more high-profile situations.
TACO appeared in , when Robert Armstrong described the oscillations evident in the markets, on the stock exchanges, related to the US president’s threat of tariffs: the markets fall with the threats and rise when Trump retreats.
One of the examples of retreat occurred precisely in the tariffs, last year: on “Liberation Day” extra tariffs were announced for almost all countries. Then they were softened or renegotiated. Already this year, a setback, a defeat: the Supreme Court granted the majority of tariffs.
Also over the past year, the problem for Trump was Jerome Powell, president of the central bank of the United States. He is “incompetent”. Or “I would love to fire you,” the president said. Until someone must have remembered that the president can only be fired for crime or serious negligence. Earlier this year, Donald Trump admitted that removing Powell was no longer in his plans.
The other example remembered by the Greenland: he said and said again that he was going to keep the island, that he needs the island; threatened Denmark, threatened NATO leaders. In the last two or three months, apparently, he has retreated. He didn’t return to the subject.
Another example – although in another context – comes from the days when the president was Joe Biden. Donald Trump assured that, if he were president of the USA, he would resolve the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. When he returned to the White House, he retreated. Even today he has not been able to fulfill the guarantee he had left.
However, there are also media examples of the opposite: tariffs, Venezuela or Iran. He said it would happen. And it happened.
