US President Donald Trump isn’t known for taking kindly to questions that challenge his authority or decision-making — a recent exchange over his tariffs game particularly drew his ire.

On Wednesday, a reporter asked the US President whether the term ‘TACO trade’ might be a valid description of his approach to tariffs. The TACO in question is not a Mexican dish made with tortillas, but is used to describe how markets respond to his tariff policies.

This is in reference to the markets generally selling off when he makes tariff threats and then recover after he backs down.

TACO trade, short for ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’ is a term coined by the Financial Times columnist Robert Armstrong, as reported by the New York Times. It has been widely adopted by analysts and commentators to describe a recurring market pattern: Trump threatens sweeping tariffs, markets tumble, but then he pulls back or delays, giving countries more time to negotiate.

The reporter asked the question while speaking to President Trump in the Oval Office of the White House.

The reporter asked: “Mr President, Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the ‘TACO’ trade. They’re saying Trump always chickens out on your tariff threats, and that’s why markets are higher this week. What’s your response to that?”

Trump’s response: “This country was dying. Six months ago, this country was stone-cold dead. We had a country of people who didn’t think it was going to survive. And you ask a “nasty” question like that. It’s called negotiation.”

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

Trump also claimed he “helped” China by easing the “very high” tariffs he had initially imposed.

“We were very nice to China. I don’t know if they’re going to be nice to us. We helped them, they were having difficulty because we were basically going cold turkey with them.”

However, Trump’s recurrent retreats have become a key factor in how global markets react to US trade policy.

A week after Trump announced his tariffs, global markets plunged in what many described as a stock market bloodbath. The Dow Jones and S&P futures dropped sharply, while Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index tumbled nearly 9 per cent shortly after opening. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 8 per cent in early trade.

A US court earlier this week invalidated Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” trade orders. The court ruled that the President had overstepped his authority by invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to justify a broad set of tariffs announced last month.

The ruling was met with relief in financial markets. Following the court’s decision, domestic indices like the Sensex and Nifty, along with most major Asian markets, recorded gains.

An appeals court later agreed to a temporary pause in the decision pending an appeal hearing.

(With inputs from the New York Times)