Donald Trump has retreated on his ambitions for Greenland, instead announcing an unspecified “framework of a future deal” for the island.
The US president went into few details about the agreement he had struck with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
“This solution, if consummated, will be a great one for the United States of America, and all NATO Nations,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social.
“Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st.”
The president’s apparent retreat is the latest example of what his critics refer to as TACO Trump.
The unflattering acronym is short for Trump Always Chickens Out, according to former Barack Obama staffer and Pod Save America host Tommy Vietor.
“I mean, it does seem positive that President Trump has walked back his threat to invade Greenland or tariff the entire continent of Europe,” Vietor told Today.
“But the fact that I’m saying these words out loud just kind of shows you how ridiculous things have gotten and how America is viewed as a pariah state in a lot of places.”
Vietor was sceptical Trump’s announced framework will amount to anything meaningful.
“I doubt there will really be a deal,” he said.
“This is Trump doing what he always does, which is TACO.”
Vietor was baffled that the president would be so focused on Greenland when the American people were demanding action on the economy.
“He’s just a weird mercurial old man who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on,” Vietor said.
“He’s doing things that are unpopular and politically damaging.”
Top Democratic congressman Jim McGovern was no kinder.
“He said a lot of crazy shit today. I think it’s time to take the keys away from grandpa,” he said.
“He doesn’t seem like he’s all there.”
TACO as an acronym emerged from Wall Street, where traders were cashing in on the assumption that the president would back down from his most audacious proposals.
The term first came into use after Trump delayed many of his Liberation Day tariffs.
And many traders have made substantial sums of money betting the president wouldn’t keep his word.
“The market is still of the mind that we are going to see this kind of bluster from the get-go — an opening salvo that’s pretty aggressive,” Natixis Investment Managers Solutions’ Garrett Melson told MarketWatch.
“But then it gets dialled back.”
Wall Street jumped today in the wake of Trump’s announcement.
