Why Trump Always Chickens Out: The Full TACO Picture
- john raymond
- May 28
- 4 min read
Donald Trump’s pattern is undeniable. He blusters, threatens, announces sweeping actions — tariffs, military strikes, constitutional overhauls — and then, just when the moment of decision arrives, he retreats. The MAGA faithful call it strategy, the press calls it inconsistency, and Wall Street traders now simply anticipate it. They even gave it a name: the “TACO Trade” — Trump Always Chickens Out. But this behavior isn’t random, and it isn’t mere cowardice. It is something deeper, darker, and more dangerous.
At its core, Trump’s pattern of retreat is not a glitch. It’s the strategy of a man who is performing a role under the tight constraints of a master-servant relationship. For all his posing as a nationalist strongman, the truth is simpler and more sinister: Donald Trump is, and long has been, an asset of Vladimir Putin’s regime.
The Russian Thread
Trump’s long history with Russian money is not a side note — it is the origin point of his corruption and submission to Russia. After American banks blacklisted him following his string of bankruptcies in the 1990s and early 2000s, he became increasingly reliant on Russian oligarchs and their vast pools of shadow wealth. As early as 2008, his own son, Don Jr., admitted that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” From real estate purchases to shell companies, the Trump Organization became a laundromat for Russian influence — financial, political, and personal.
This early dependency matured into something far more compromising. By the time Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, he had already spent years orbiting the Putin-aligned sphere, echoing Kremlin propaganda points and staffing his campaign with pro-Russian figures like Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn. He wasn’t merely repeating Russian talking points because he agreed with them — he was doing it because he was already inside the architecture of influence.
Performance Sabotage
Trump’s public persona as a tough negotiator is a lie built to hide the truth: he cannot follow through without jeopardizing his power. Every time he talks about crushing China with tariffs, breaking NATO, or “fixing” the trade deficit, he stops short of collapsing the global order — not because he has a moral compass, but because doing so would recklessly expose him as the saboteur he is for all to see. His value to the Kremlin lies in slow erosion, not rapid actions that trace back to them.
So he creates drama: announces tariffs, watches the market plunge, then backs off just enough to sow confusion, grievance, and economic instability. He threatens allies, then claims victory when nothing changes. He orders strikes, then cancels them minutes before launch. This is not strategy. It is obedience to a higher directive: destabilize the West, but keep the fire low enough that he can’t be tied directly to the match.
Cowardice as Control
To understand why Trump “chickens out,” you must understand what he fears: accountability. To follow through on any major policy initiative — to raise tariffs long enough to really bite, to break alliances, to try a true coup — would invite full push back and defeat. And defeat would mean exposure: investigations reopened, financial records subpoenaed, foreign contacts traced. His bluff is the armor. He bluffs not because he’s strong, but because following through would cost him the power he uses to stay hidden.
Cowardice, in Trump’s case, is not a contradiction of his persona — it’s the glue that holds it together. He weaponizes threats for maximum effect and minimum risk, constantly retreating from the brink to preserve the illusion of dominance while never letting the mask fall. He can’t complete the con, because to do so would reveal it is a con.
The Final Betrayal
There are those who still think Trump acts in America’s interest, however misguided. But his actions tell a clearer story: the trade wars that hurt American farmers but helped Russian grain markets, the weakening of NATO, the abandonment of Ukraine, the embrace of autocrats and undermining of elections — all of it aligns with Putin’s agenda, not America’s. The “America First” slogan was always a cover for “Russia First by Stealth.”
Trump always chickens out because he is not free. He is bound — by greed, by blackmail, by history, by his own bottomless need to be adored by those who fear him, and most importantly by subservience to Putin and the Kremlin. The American people are not his constituents; they are his stage. And the damage he does is not the result of miscalculation, but of loyal service to an enemy project.
In the end, Trump’s failure to carry through is not proof that he’s harmless. It’s proof that his real project — the sabotage of the American order — is ongoing, and far from finished. And until we recognize that “chickening out” is the smokescreen for a deeper betrayal, we will continue to mistake cowardice for incompetence, and miss the truth staring us in the face.
Trump doesn’t retreat because he’s afraid of losing. He retreats because he knows who he is really working for — and what will happen if he is finally caught out for all to see.
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