Trump makes a TACO with pasta

Connoisseurs of Italian pasta can once again breathe easy—thanks to a TACO.

Donald Trump backtracked on the punishing tariffs he had placed on pasta imports that would have erased Italian-made pastas from the U.S. market, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

In November, Trump announced an astounding 107% tariff on Italian pasta imports, claiming that Italy had deliberately underpriced its pasta to undermine American pasta producers. Italian pasta makers said the tariff was so high that it would force them to withdraw from the American market, making their brands unavailable in the United States.

But Trump pulled one of his signature TACOs and reduced the insane tariff on the two biggest Italian pasta exporters to a less insane but still inflationary 2.3% and 13.9% rate, the WSJ reported.

“This is a great step forward. In Italy, we are finally working as a team,” Cosimo Rummo, chief executive of the Italian-made Rummo Pasta brand, told the WSJ.

It’s not just pasta that Trump is backing away from imposing tariffs on.

The White House announced on New Year’s Eve that it was also delaying an increase in tariffs on upholstered furniture, kitchen cabinets, and vanities for a year. 

Trump had already imposed a 25% tariff on those items in September. But those tariffs were set to rise to as much as 50% on Jan. 1.

Trump’s cave keeps the tariffs on those goods at a still-too-high 25% for the time being. 

These are the first TACOs—an insult Wall Street traders had coined for Trump that stands for Trump Always Chickens Out—of 2026.

For example, Trump has lowered a number of the truly idiotic "Liberation Day" tariffs he announced back in April, even though he claimed he was done chickening out and wouldn't lower the levies.

But while Trump has lowered some tariffs, most remain in effect to some extent. 

The average tariff is now at a whopping 21%, according to an estimate from the Tax Policy Center. This has helped keep inflation at a higher pace than the Federal Reserve Bank wants to see.

Related | Mexico gets a mouthful of TACO Don

It's why prices continue to remain high, giving American consumers heartburn. For example, a CBS News poll from mid-December found that more than half (52%) of Americans said it is not easy to afford food, while 44% of Americans said it was not easy for them to afford housing and health care. 

And it's why Trump's approval on his handling of the economy is in the toilet.

The same CBS News poll found just 37% of Americans approve of Trump’s job with the economy—with a whopping 61% saying the president is gaslighting the country by claiming prices and inflation are better than they really are.

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