Asked about 'TACO' and tariffs, Donald Trump lashes out at reporter over 'nasty question'

'I chicken out? I've never heard that. Don't ever say what you said, the US President told the reporter.

President Donald Trump, it would seem, is not one for a "TACO." The taco in question is not a dish made with tortillas, but rather a reference to how markets are responding to his tariff policies.

The TACO trade, short for Trump Always Chickens Out, is a tongue-in-cheek term coined by Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong. It has been adopted by some analysts and commentators to describe the potentially lucrative pattern in which markets tumble after Trump makes tariff threats, only to rebound sharply when he relents and allows countries more time to negotiate deals.

The president has spent years cultivating a reputation for political muscle. So when he was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether the term might be a valid description of his approach to tariffs, Trump reacted with ire.

"I chicken out? I've never heard that," he said. "Don't ever say what you said," he told the reporter. "That's a nasty question. To me, that's the nastiest question."

But gyrations driven by the president's on-again, off-again tariffs are by now taken for granted on Wall Street. Stock markets jumped Tuesday, for example, after Trump delayed a proposed 50% tariff on the European Union that he had threatened only a few days earlier.