"The Nastiest" Question: Trump Snaps At Reporter Over TACO Query

On Wall Street, traders have a new mantra: When Trump threatens tariffs, reach for a TACO. No, not the crunchy kind. 

The acronym, which stands for "Trump Always Chickens Out," is the latest buzzword among traders and investors navigating months of economic whiplash caused by the US President's ever-changing trade stances.

Coined by Financial Times writer Robert Armstrong, TACO is a label for what has become a familiar pattern: Trump announces sweeping tariff threats, markets react with a downturn, investor anxiety intensifies, and then, almost predictably, he reverses course, triggering a relief rally.

"I chicken out? Oh, I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145 per cent that I set down to 100 and then to another number?" Trump said Wednesday when asked about the term.

He made the remarks at an Oval Office event when he referred to his shifting tariff rates on imported Chinese goods, a cycle that has seen peaks as high as 145 per cent before dialling back to the current 30 per cent.

Trump's trade threats have become a familiar source of market mayhem and recovery.

One week it is 50 per cent tariffs on EU goods "with no room to negotiate". Two days later, after what he described as "promising talks," Trump delayed the plan until July 9.

Markets, jittery before Memorial Day, rallied when trading resumed.

"It's called negotiation," Trump insisted. "Don't ever say what you said," he told the reporter, calling the TACO question "the nastiest."

This back-and-forth behaviour isn't new.

On April 2, Trump announced sweeping Liberation Day "reciprocal" tariffs affecting dozens of countries, scheduled to go into effect on April 9.

But just hours after the tariffs kicked in, Trump hit pause for at least 90 days for all countries, except China. His reason was that "investors were getting yippy yappy."

Translation: the markets weren't pleased.

Now, even the courts have weighed in. This week, the US Court of International Trade blocked Trump's Liberation Day tariffs, ruling that he exceeded his legal authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Manhattan-based court said only the Congress can regulate foreign trade and rejected the notion that the President could invoke emergency powers for blanket tariff imposition.

The administration has filed an appeal. Trump adviser Stephen Miller responded with a fiery post on social media, calling the ruling a "judicial coup."