The 'Taco Trump' jibe proves that words do really matter

The National

2 days ago

It's one of the most famous quotes from Shakespeare: 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' Juliet says it about Romeo, suggesting she loves him not for his family connections but for who he is. In modern politics however, especially in the US, names and name-calling in the Donald Trump era seem to have a different significance, and it's not so sweet.
American media outlets are full of observations about the nickname given to Mr Trump by Wall Street insiders. He is known, they say, as 'Taco Trump', but not because of his fondness for those crispy Mexican delicacies. It's for his fondness for tariffs that are put on foreign imports at extremely high levels and then reduced – and then maybe reimposed and reduced again. The 'Taco' tag stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out' meaning that he talks tough, makes an announcement but when confronted by resistance or jitters in the bond market, he backs down.
Mr Trump has described the nickname as 'nasty', but he himself is the king of nicknames and clickbait-friendly put-downs. He repeatedly referred to his predecessor Joe Biden as 'Sleepy Joe'. He talked of 'Crooked Hillary' Clinton. He sums up his entire political philosophy in four letters – not Taco but 'Maga', which stands for 'Make America Great Again'. It's not clear exactly when America ceased to be great, but that isn't the point. Maga is a stroke of genius. It means that any American voter can think of anything in their lives that they don't like, and Mr Trump's slogan somehow might miraculously fix it.
Outside the US, in some other countries Maga has come to mean 'Make America Go Away' and stop tariffs unsettling the world economy. There are even ruder terms in circulation that I won't quote here but which are used to describe the Trump-inspired market fluctuations. This market volatility has been noted by investors who – if they assume that tariff uncertainty is pushing markets up and down – may be able to choose how to buy in the dip and sell on the upturn at a profit.
Reuters quoted Mark Spindel, the chief investment officer of Potomac River Capital, observing that the market is caught 'in a pinball machine as a result of [Mr Trump's] policymaking process'. The White House official line is that Taco and the other jibes are 'asinine acronyms', but the fact they have had to respond suggests Mr Trump and his staff are well aware of the communication skills involved in making a neat – if nasty – nickname or observation. It's a skill that Mr Trump has himself used for years. Why? Because it works.
The stark truth about politics and economics in the 21st century is that most voters don't have the patience, the inclination or even the skills to analyse economic or trade policies. What tariff should be on imports of beef? How about cars or clothing or iPhones? What are the implications? Will the share prices of importers and manufacturers go up or down? Most of us don't know, and perhaps most of us don't care, until the car or washing machine or clothes we plan to buy suddenly go up in price. But a brief phrase or nasty nickname cuts through where a PhD in economics or a disquisition on the benefits of free trade may not.
The Taco jibe has also sparked off a creative deluge of another kind. On social media there are now endless memes, some showing Mr Trump in a yellow chicken suit, sometimes covered in tacos. When popular culture picks up a meme or a slogan like this – as all those Maga hats prove – then words really do matter and they cut through.
So what should Mr Trump do about the Taco jibe? Nothing, probably. Ignore it. But it will not go away. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a probable candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 2028, jokes publicly that 'it's raining tacos'. Other Democrats, who have seemed silent or even neutered by the Trump blitz on Washington, have picked up the serious point. For them, the Taco jibe sums up in four letters the Trump administration's apparent economic incoherence in the way tariffs are being used.
Until most voters notice changes in prices to the things they want to buy but can no longer afford, the economic arguments may be lost. But the political capital from the nickname, especially the alliteration of 'Taco Trump', is appearing on outlets ranging from the sober pages of The New York Times to the lower depths of clickbait social media.
For Mr Trump's opponents, it's a useful propaganda tool. And it may have wider implications, too.
This is a President who suggested he could end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, change China's lucrative US trade imbalances and solve the problems of Gaza. Faced with leaders like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Benjamin Netanyahu, perhaps the Taco tag and the idea that 'Trump Always Chickens Out' is something the world's hard-nosed leaders may already be considering.