President Donald Trump’s foreign policy flip-flops have destroyed American credibility around the globe, journalist Fareed Zakaria argues in a Washington Post opinion piece. Now all that remains is a “strange” reality TV show.

“For the world there is no longer any such thing as American credibility, just a strange reality television show in which the main actor swerves, bobs and weaves his way through crises, hoping that what he says today will solve the crisis caused by what he said yesterday,” Zakaria writes.

He points to a recent Truth Social post in which the president threatened Tehran, saying:

“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST.”

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When Iran refused, crossing Trump’s “red line,” what was the commander-in-chief’s response?

“To quickly climb down and announce that he had postponed any action on energy infrastructure for five days, claiming that — suddenly, overnight — Iran and the US had been engaged in ‘productive conversations’ toward a ‘complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East.’ The Iranians denied any such talks were taking place. Now Trump says he’s extending the pause by another week and a half.”

That latest extension, which Trump invoked Thursday afternoon, led to online ridicule and mockery, with many declaring Trump had “TACOed” again — with “TACO” standing for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

Trump’s flip-flops happen for a variety of reasons, such as the stock market falling or a nation handing him a gold bar.

But this time, they are not working, because Iran also gets a vote in whether or when the war ends — something Trump appears to clearly want.

“Trump has gotten used to playing with the U.S.’s massive power, punishing those who don’t bend the knee and rewarding those who do,” he writes. “In doing this, he is squandering credibility built up over decades to extract short-term goodies — sometimes to the benefit of his own family’s business interests. But in Iran he seems to have come up against an adversary that won’t play by his rules.”

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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.”

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