Trump Has Out TACO’d Himself with Empty Iran Threats and Oil-Slicked Lies

There’s an irritating duality, when it comes to President Donald Trump’s persistent tendency toward what has become one of his defining behaviors, the term “TACO” (Trump Always Chickens Out) as originally coined by Financial Times journalist Robert Armstrong. On one hand, it is inherently irresponsible for people, or entire nations or governments, to forge onward in their decisions while relying on the confidence that Donald Trump will always chicken out and back down from his most incendiary claims and promises–at some point, you’re going to be wrong, and you’re going to get a lot of people hurt as a result. But on the other hand … well, he does very reliably chicken out! He does it so often, so spinelessly and predictably, that you almost can’t blame people for relying on it. Iran’s military leadership clearly knows this, and given that they’re already in a (insanely costly) war against the U.S., they clearly feel pretty good about rolling the dice on assuming that Trump is bluffing when he does things like give Iran a 48-hour ultimatum on Saturday that he would bomb the country’s power plants if they didn’t immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz. All that was left at that point was to sit back and wait for the chicken to come home to roost.

And on Monday morning, Trump seemingly proved Iran’s military leadership correct, flip-flopping on his previous ultimatum in one of his grandest and most embarrassing TACOs to date. Naturally, he had to attempt to save face in some way, so he did so by claiming that the promised attacks on Iran’s power plants and energy infrastructure would no longer be necessary because the U.S. had been having “very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East” with Iran over the weekend, which meant he would push off his promised attacks on the energy sector “for a five day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussions.” Please note that I’m delivering these quotes to you in standard American English, rather than the all-caps vomit with which Trump delivered them on Truth Social.

TACO Trump is bailing out of his disastrous war and juicing the markets on Monday morning.

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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) Mar 23, 2026 at 7:32 AM

The only problem, of course, is that Iran immediately called all of those pronouncements bullshit, denying that any talks with the U.S. had even occurred, much less made some kind of progress in a resolution. Instead, they exulted in successfully calling Trump’s bluff, with various, triumphant statements from Iranian officials more or less calling Trump a coward. Iranian state media crowed that Trump was “backing down” due to Iran’s vows to retaliate against energy infrastructure in the Middle East, saying that “Trump, out of fear of Iran’s response, backed down from his 48-hour ultimatum.” The Iranian news agency Tasnim said the following: “From the beginning of the war until today, messages have been sent to Tehran by some mediators, and the clear response has been that we will continue our defense until the necessary level of deterrence is achieved. There have been no negotiations and there are none underway.” Opining on why Trump would lie, state-run news agency Mizan stated the obvious: “To reduce energy prices and to buy time for implementing his military plans.”

It should go without saying that both sides here have impetus to lie, and that both are probably lying in one fashion or another, but it’s also difficult to make the argument that Iran is at any real point of desperation or necessity to strike a deal with the United States. They correctly observe that in the end it all comes down to energy prices, something that Iran has demonstrated it holds an outsized amount of influence over in the region. The United States failed utterly to plan for the vast butterfly effect of price shocks to the world economy that would flow out of even a brief closure of oil shipping in the area, which has already sent food prices through the roof all over. Thus, you could certainly argue that Donald Trump and the United States are the party with the most motivation to lie about “productive talks” in this scenario, given that any Trump tweeting hinting at a cessation of the war tends to provide instant downward spikes in oil prices. His TACO-fueled suggestion on Monday that perhaps the war is about to conclude had exactly this intended effect, sending the price of Brent crude falling from a high of $114 per barrel to below $100 as I write this. That this is Trump’s primary intention when he puts out these messages can’t really be debated.

“Senior Trump administration officials have been briefed on US casualty estimates – prepared by military and intelligence personnel – for a variety of possible ground invasion scenarios in their illegal Iran war, two sources familiar with the situation and another person briefed on it tell us….

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— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24.bsky.social) Mar 23, 2026 at 8:44 AM

The President continues to demonstrate his sensitivity–abject fear, really–of negative financial news, even as his administration plows ahead with policies seemingly designed to generate those same, disastrous financial headlines. What he really wants, though, is time–Trump often seems to have the attention span and forward outlook of a grade school student, unable to think about anything more than a few days in advance. He sees a problem–oil prices surging yet again–and his stopgap solution is to tweet a few lies about peace treaties and stabilization of the region, even as thousands of U.S. Marines mass in the region for what would no doubt be an extremely deadly and costly ground invasion. The Strait of Hormuz, meanwhile, remains closed, wreaking havoc on not just oil prices but the global agricultural industry. The same Iranian regime is still in place. But none of that matters to Trump if he can kick the can of his latest failure a few days further down the road.

Today, Trump gets what he wants. Oil prices fall, stocks rise, and investors relax a tiny bit on the vague promise of good news. But if the next few days prove that Trump is lying yet again, his all-time low approval ratings will no doubt find a new bedrock never before thought possible. At some point, TACO critical mass must be achieved.