Lunch with the man who coined TACO

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite presidential saber rattling and huge tariff threats, the U.S. stock market keeps reaching record highs. Why?

Today we sit down with the man who coined the acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out) and chew through several hypotheses. (Over tacos, of course.)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.2	On a summer's day I met Robert Armstrong at a Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn.
0:16.6	Okay, so should we order some tacos?
0:18.6	Yeah, and I'll...
0:19.7	Robert Armstrong writes for the Financial Times.
0:22.3	He hosts the unhedged podcast, and we were there for one reason.
0:27.2	I've been out three tacos.
0:28.9	Robert is famous for this acronym he coined, Tako.
0:32.9	Trump always chickens out.
0:35.0	Alpasteur, grilled shrimp, and fish. I got mushrooms, spinach and veggies.
0:42.8	So you might remember tacos, basically this idea that Donald Trump threatens super high tariffs
0:50.1	and also things like firing the chair of the Federal Reserve, but then he backs down on the more extreme policies
0:57.1	when the markets freak out.
0:59.2	So for a while, Taco and I were the darling of tariff policy.
1:04.7	And this is one explanation for why the stock market
1:07.6	has been reaching new heights,
1:10.1	despite a chorus of economists and many business
1:13.3	leaders saying that President Trump's tariffs will hurt growth.
1:18.5	This is the indicator from Planet Money, I'm Derryam Woods.
1:22.1	Today on the show, why is the stock market doing so well?
1:26.4	Aside from some recent bumps in the road, Wall Street seems to be shrugging off chaotic economic policymaking.
1:33.9	We chew the whole inch of ladder after the break.
	...

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