The Democratic National Committee is mocking Donald Trump in a very public—and edible—way.
On Tuesday, they rolled a taco truck into downtown Washington, D.C., parking it right outside the Republican National Committee headquarters. But this wasn’t just any taco truck. It was wrapped in huge photos of Trump in a chicken suit and the slogan “Trump Always Chickens Out” (TACO).
The phrase, coined by a Financial Times columnist and picked up by Wall Street analysts, is aimed directly at Trump’s back-and-forth on tariffs. They say he talks tough, then backs down.
“Trump always chickens out – we’re just bringing the tacos to match,” said DNC Chair Ken Martin. He didn’t stop there. “Instead of realizing his tariff chaos is wrecking the economy, Trump continues to drag America towards more economic pain, and the rest of the world sees Trump for exactly what he is: a chicken.”
The DNC says this is about more than just optics. They’re trying to highlight what they call Trump’s reckless trade war and the real cost for working families. “Playing games with working families’ livelihoods,” is how one official put it to Fox News.
Trump’s tariff plan, announced in April, slapped a 10% tax on most U.S. trading partners, with even higher “reciprocal” tariffs on countries that he says treat the U.S. unfairly. But it’s still tangled up in court. Three federal cases are underway, questioning whether Trump can legally use emergency powers to push through these economic penalties.
Still, the branding seems to be getting under Trump’s skin.
Last week, a reporter asked him about the “TACO” nickname. Trump snapped.
“Don’t ever say what you said,” he fired back. “To me, that’s the nastiest question.”
He added, “I chicken out, oh, I have never heard that,” defending the tariff rollback as part of a larger “negotiation” with China.
“You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number? I said, ‘You have to open your whole country.’”
In other words, Trump says it’s all strategy. But Democrats say it’s proof he folds under pressure.
The DNC’s taco truck stunt is the latest in a series of symbolic actions aimed at highlighting Trump’s trade policy inconsistencies. While the RNC downplayed the event, calling it a “lame” attempt at political theater, the TACO acronym continues to resonate in public discourse, reflecting ongoing frustrations with the president’s economic strategies.
