President Donald Trump made no pretense at hiding his irritation this week when he was asked by a reporter about “TACO” — an acronym that has been gaining traction among Wall Street traders who believe that “Trump Always Chickens Out.” The so-called “TACO Theory” was coined by Robert Armstrong, a Financial Times writer seeking to underline the US president’s tendency to backtrack on policies when they start to roil the markets. Investors have come to realize that the US administration “does not have a very high tolerance for market and economic pressure and will be quick to back off when tariffs cause pain,” the journalist concluded.”This is the TACO Theory: Trump Always Chickens Out.”Armstrong was writing earlier this month, after stocks had just rebounded sharply on Trump’s announcement of a pause in massive tariffs imposed on the rest of the world by the Republican leader. Worsening the whiplash, Trump announced last week that tariffs of 50 percent on imports from the European Union would come into force on June 1 — but two days later declared a pause until July 9. – ‘It’s called negotiation’ -At the heart of Trump’s flip-flops is an acute sensitivity for the ups and downs of market trading that he honed as a brash New York property developer and business magnate in the 1980s. During his first term in office, a sharp reaction on Wall Street could sometimes be the only way to change the billionaire’s mind. Beyond the columns of the Financial Times, the “TACO Theory” is having a viral moment, and has entered the lexicon of investors who see it as more than just a snarky in-joke, according to analysts. “TACO trading strategy gets attention again,” blared the headline on a podcast released Monday by John Hardy, head of macroeconomic strategy at Danish investment bank Saxo.  The phrase eventually found its way back to the 78-year-old president, who furiously denied on Wednesday that he was backing down in the face of stock market turmoil. “I chicken out? I’ve never heard that… don’t ever say what you said, that’s a nasty question,” the mercurial tycoon thundered, rounding in the journalist who had asked for his take on the expression. Far from caving, Trump said he was merely engaging in the high-stakes cut and thrust of international dealmaking, he snarled — adding, with a sardonic edge: “It’s called negotiation.”For Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers, the TACO Theory is a “nonpolitical way of the markets calling the administration’s bluff.”- Reaction -Sam Burns, an analyst at Mill Street Research, told AFP he has noticed a new equanimity in Wall Street’s reaction to each new tariff announcement, with traders’ responses initially “much larger and more direct.”Where they once convulsed markets, Trump’s tariff talk now tends to be viewed as “easily reversible or not reliable,” said Burns, and investors are accordingly more willing to ignore the instinct to act rashly.This new calm was evident among traders at the New York Stock Exchange who held steady in the face of Trump’s EU tariff threats, and again when they did not overreact to successive court rulings blocking and then temporarily reinstating most of the tariffs. But Hardy, the Saxo analyst, warns that the vagaries of Trump’s day-to-day announcements should not distract from the protectionist bent of his broader political outlook. “Trump might ‘chicken out’ at times,” Hardy wrote in a recent commentary on Saxo’s website.”But the underlying policy moves are for real, and a deadly serious shift in US economic statecraft and industrial policy that is a response to massive instabilities that have been growing for years.”

Elon Musk stormed into US politics as President Donald Trump’s chainsaw-brandishing sidekick. Four turbulent months later it’s the tech tycoon himself on the chopping block.Trump hailed Musk as “terrific” as he announced that they would hold a joint press conference on Friday as the South African-born magnate leaves the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).”This will be his last day, but not really, because he will, always, be with us, helping all the way,” Trump said on his Truth Social network on Thursday.But the warm words could not hide the open frustrations that Musk, the world’s richest man, had expressed in recent weeks about his controversial cost-cutting role for the world’s most powerful man.Once a fixture at the Republican president’s side, dressed in t-shirts and MAGA baseball caps, Musk had shown growing disillusionment with the obstacles faced by DOGE even as it cut a brutal swath through the US bureaucracy.He leaves far short of his original goal of saving $2 trillion dollars, with The Atlantic magazine calculating he saved just one thousandth of that, despite tens of thousands of people losing their jobs.Instead he will focus on his Space X and Tesla businesses, as well as his goal of colonizing Mars.- Rocket-like rise -It was all very different at first, as the 53-year-old Musk rose through Trump’s orbit as rapidly as one of his rockets — though they have been known to blow up now and again. Musk was the biggest donor to Trump’s 2024 election campaign and the pair bonded over right-wing politics and a desire to root out what they believed was a wasteful “deep state.”DOGE was jokingly named after a “memecoin,” but it was no joke. Young tech wizards who slept in the White House complex shuttered whole government departments. Foreign countries found their aid cut off.A shades-wearing Musk brandished a chainsaw at a conservative event, boasting of how easy it was to save money, and separately made what appeared to be a Nazi salute. Soon the man critics dubbed the “co-president” was constantly at Trump’s side.The tycoon appeared with his young son X on his shoulders during his first press conference in the Oval Office. He attended cabinet meetings. He and Trump rode on Air Force One and Marine One together. They watched cage fights together.Many wondered how long two such big egos could coexist.But Trump himself remained publicly loyal to the man he called a “genius.”One day, the president even turned the White House into a pop-up Tesla dealership after protesters targeted Musk’s electric car business.- ‘Got into fights’ -Yet the socially awkward tech magnate also struggled to get a grip on the realities of US politics.The beginning of the end “started (in) mid-March when there were several meetings in the Oval Office and in the cabinet room where basically Elon Musk got into fights,” Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institution told AFP.One shouting match with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent could reportedly be heard throughout the West Wing. Musk publicly called Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks.” Nor did Musk’s autocratic style and Silicon Valley creed of “move fast and break things” work well in Washington.The impact on Musk’s businesses also began to hit home. A series of Space X launches ended in fiery failures, while Tesla shareholders fumed.Musk started musing about stepping back, saying that “DOGE is a way of life, like Buddhism” that would carry on without him.Finally, Musk showed the first signs of distance from Trump himself, saying he was “disappointed” in Trump’s recent mega spending bill. Musk also said he would pull back from spending time on politics.The end came, appropriately, in a post by Musk on Wednesday on the X network, which he bought and then turned into a megaphone for his right-wing politics.But Musk’s departure might not be the end of the story, said Kamarck.”I think they genuinely like each other and I think Musk has a lot of money that he can contribute to campaigns if he is so moved. I think there will be a continued relation,” she said. 

Bernard “Bernie” Kerik, who rose to national prominence after leading the New York police department through the September 11 terror attacks, died Thursday. He was 69.FBI Director Kash Patel announced Kerik’s death on X, saying he passed away “after a private battle with illness.”Lauding Kerik, Patel called him “a warrior, a patriot and one of the most courageous public servants this country has ever known.”Kerik was the tough-talking head of the New York police when Osama bin Laden’s hijackers struck the World Trade Center towers with commercial passenger jets in September 2001. In the traumatic days and weeks after the attack, Kerik, with his squat, muscular build, balding head and black moustache, became a familiar face to Americans across the country, as he helped then-mayor Rudy Giuliani guide New York through the crisis.He’d served as Police Commissioner for less than a year when his life and career were altered forever by the terror attacks that killed nearly 2,750 people, including 23 NYPD officers.When Giuliani’s second term ended shortly after the attacks, Kerik left office with him and continued their decades-long friendship and professional allegiance.Kerik’s rough upbringing was detailed in a memoir, “The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit.” Born in New Jersey to an alcoholic prostitute, he was abandoned by his mother and brought up by his father, and had a troubled childhood.Early on his career took him around the world, with a spell on a military police posting in South Korea and working as a security consultant for the Saudi royal family in Saudi Arabia. He later joined the New York Police Department, where he worked undercover in the narcotics division and helped bust 60 members of the notorious Colombian Cali drug cartel.After leaving the Police Commissioner role post-9/11, Kerik stayed active in Republican politics, taking on a tour of duty to Iraq to help train their law enforcement in 2003 for former president George W. Bush.He suffered another fall from grace after pleading guilty in 2009 to felonies, including tax fraud.He admitted to accepting $255,000 worth of renovations to his apartment from a construction firm — suspected of having mob ties — angling for government contracts.His plea helped him avoid a maximum potential sentence of up to 61 years behind bars. Instead, he was sentenced to four years in prison. He was released in 2013. Kerik received a presidential pardon in 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first term.He later teamed up with Giuliani to investigate debunked allegations of election fraud following Trump’s 2020 loss, and was among those subpoenaed by lawmakers over accusations of plotting to overturn the election in the January 6, 2021 attacks on the US Capitol.