President Donald Trump is facing ridicule and accusations of “TACOing” after posting that he is delaying his threatened bombing of Iran’s energy plants by ten days. Earlier this week, he had delayed it by five days. Trump’s remarks came minutes after markets closed, with US stocks having their “biggest loss since the war with Iran started,” the Associated Press reported.

“As per Iranian Government request, please let this statement serve to represent that I am pausing the period of Energy Plant destruction by 10 Days to Monday, April 6, 2026, at 8 P.M., Eastern Time,” the president wrote Friday afternoon. “Talks are ongoing and, despite erroneous statements to the contrary by the Fake News Media, and others, they are going very well.”

“TACO,” coined in May of last year, stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.” It was first used in relation to his tariffs, when he would threaten hefty levies but then back down from them, imposing smaller ones or none.

Trump has repeatedly insisted he is negotiating with Iran, although Iran denies the claim, saying that the U.S. is “negotiating with itself.” The administration sent Iran a 15-point peace plan proposal,  which Tehran rejected as “excessive.”

Some critics ridiculed the president, others suggested more substantive insights.

Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall wrote: “Enough tacos here for a New Mexican restaurant chain.”

Saying that Trump is “Resetting the TACO deadline,” Public Radio’s Kai Ryssdal asked, “Do we believe that?”

“At this point, it’s clear they are just winging it,” declared Alexander Langlois, a contributing fellow at Defense Priorities. “What are these deadlines? Can any of them be trusted? Zero transparency from this administration, especially on clear and obvious threats to commit war crimes against civilian infrastructure. What are we even doing?”

Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas asked if this is “Real diplomacy?” or “More oil jawboning?”

Numerous social media posters simply wrote, “#TACO.”

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Iran is using America’s playbook against the Trump administration. It has mastered long-standing strategies the U.S. used against Iran to its own benefit.

That’s according to author Edward Fishman, who writes in a New York Times opinion piece, “Iran has learned the lessons of American foreign policy. It has used the tools at its disposal to exacerbate risk, forcing private actors to become unwitting tools of its statecraft.”

Fishman says, “While the Trump administration’s war aims have vacillated between regime change, denuclearization and military degradation, it now has one overriding objective: reopening the strait.”

Iran appears to hold all the cards there.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz, analysts believed, “would require Iran to lay thousands of sea mines and render the strait physically impassable,” making it an unlikely move — especially as Iran also relies on the strait for shipping.

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But Iran, using America’s strategies, “has shown it can disrupt the strait at far lower cost.”

How?

Target just a small number of ships, and let others realize there is a possible threat — effectively shutting down traffic on the Strait.

Fishman explains that this is the same strategy the U.S. used against Iran for decades: threaten international banks to break with Tehran, sanctioning only a small number to convey a broader message.

“By threatening to cut off foreign banks from the dollar unless they severed ties with Iran, they effectively isolated the country from the international financial system,” Fishman explains. “The United States rarely had to follow through on its threats. In a strategy one U.S. official described as ‘killing the chicken to scare the monkeys,’ Washington deployed these so-called secondary sanctions sparingly. On the few occasions they were applied, everyone else got the message. Sanctioning a single Chinese bank was enough to shift the risk tolerance of the rest.”

What happens if other countries adapt this approach?

“If the world deals with the United States by fighting back, rather than negotiating,” Fishman writes, “stability will be harder to achieve — and more costly once won.”

READ MORE: Trump Unleashes Unhinged Early Morning Tirade Targeting Enemies and Allies

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President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace will be receiving $1.25 billion from the U.S. State Department, taxpayer funds that had been designated for international disasters and peacekeeping, Semafor reported in an exclusive.

Trump’s Board of Peace has drawn criticism for its highly centralized structure, under which Trump serves as chairman for life and controls who succeeds him. He also wields unilateral control over the organization’s actions, including where and how it spends its funds.

U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) is introducing legislation that would redirect $1 billion of the $1.25 bill to the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

“Instead of giving President Trump a $1 billion blank check to fund a ‘Board of Peace’ that has offered no transparency about how it is investing its money, let’s focus on helping American families afford their monthly power bill,” Cortez Masto told Semafor.

READ MORE: Trump Unleashes Unhinged Early Morning Tirade Targeting Enemies and Allies

Trump has pledged the U.S. will provide the Border Patrol of Peace a total of $10 billion.

Trump has sole discretion on which nations are invited to join, and he is requiring a $1 billion payment to the Board of Peace for permanent membership. The president rescinded his invitation to Canada after its prime minister indicated Canada would not pay the $1 billion fee.

According to reports, the organization could be filled with authoritarian leaders, and it is being seen as a possible rival to the United Nations.

“The Board of Peace has had a rough landing,” reported Bloomberg News’ UK political editor Alex Wickham in January, noting that “it’s been criticized by Israel, questioned by Europe and has Russia’s friends celebrating.”

READ MORE: Trump Is So Desperate to End the War He Doesn’t Even Want to Call It One: Columnist

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