WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants the world to know he’s no “chicken” just because he’s repeatedly backed off high tariff threats.

The U.S. Republican president’s tendency to levy extremely high import taxes and then retreat has created what’s known as the “TACO” trade, an acronym coined by The Financial Times’ Robert Armstrong that stands for “Trump Always Chickens Out.”

Markets generally sell off when Trump makes his tariff threats and then recover after he backs down.

Trump was offended when asked about the phrase Wednesday and rejected the idea that he’s “chickening out,” saying that the reporter’s inquiry was “nasty.”

“You call that chickening out?” Trump said. “It’s called negotiation,” adding that he sets a “ridiculous high number, and I go down a little bit, you know, a little bit” until the figure is more reasonable.

Trump defended his approach of raising tariff rates to 145% on Chinese goods, only to pull back to 30% for 90 days of talks. He similarly last week threatened to impose a 50% tax on goods from the European Union starting in June, only to delay the tariff hike until July 9 so that talks can occur while the baseline 10% tariff continues to be charged. Similar dramas have played out over autos, electronics and the universal tariffs that Trump announced April 2 that were based in part on individual trade deficits with other countries.

In each case, Trump generally took the stock market on a roller coaster. Investors sold-off when the tariff threats were announced as they implied slower economic growth and higher prices, which would hurt companies’ profits. Stocks then rebounded after Trump stepped back.

He said that approach has led to $14 trillion in new investment in the U.S., a figure that appears to be artificially high and has not been fully verified by economic data.

Combs trial: The singer Cassie was content celebrating her 29th birthday with drinks, drugs and karaoke with friends, but her boyfriend, Sean “Diddy” Combs, had a different idea.

The hip-hop mogul insisted on taking Cassie, his R&B protégé, to a Los Angeles hotel for another of his “freak-off” sex marathons, her friend and former stylist testified Wednesday at Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial in New York City.

Deonte Nash told jurors that he saw Combs berating Cassie as she pleaded for him to let her enjoy her birthday on her own terms. Later that night, Nash said, Cassie told the stylist, “I don’t want to freak-off,” but that she had to because Combs was making her.

Nash testified that the 2015 conversation was one of several times Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, confided to him that she didn’t want to engage in Combs’ drug- fueled hotel encounters. Earlier in the trial, Cassie testified that these often involved Combs watching, directing and sometimes filming her as she had sex with a male sex worker. She said she engaged in hundreds of such encounters during her relationship with Combs from 2007 to 2018.

Combs, 55, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he led a racketeering conspiracy for 20 years that relied on fear and violence to get what he wanted. If convicted, he could face 15 years to life in prison.

Influencers charged in UK: Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate have been charged in Britain with rape and other crimes, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The charges were authorized in January last year but not publicized, though news media at the time reported on a U.K. arrest warrant issued against the Tates, dual U.S. and British citizens who moved to Romania in 2016.

Andrew Tate, 38, faces 10 charges related to three women that include rape, actual bodily harm, human trafficking and controlling prostitution for gain. Tristan Tate, 36, faces 11 charges related to one woman that include rape, human trafficking and actual bodily harm.

The Tates were arrested in Romania in late 2022 and formally indicted last year. They have denied all the allegations in Romania.

Romanian courts have issued an order to extradite the two to the U.K. once their court case is concluded in there, British prosecutors said.

New COVID-19 variant: COVID-19 cases are rising again as a new variant begins to circulate in some parts of the world.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday the rise in cases is primarily in the eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and western Pacific regions.

Airport screening in the United States has detected the new variant in travelers arriving from those regions to destinations in California, Washington state, Virginia and New York.

The new variant is called NB.1.8.1. It arrives as the United States’ official stance on COVID-19 vaccination is changing.

On Tuesday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 shots are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women — a move questioned by several public health experts.

Human smuggling plot: More than three years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the U.S. along a remote stretch of the Canadian border in a blizzard, the convicted ringleader of an international human smuggling plot was sentenced in Minnesota on Wednesday to 10 years in prison.

Federal prosecutors had recommended nearly 20 years for Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, and nearly 11 years for the driver who was supposed to pick them up, Steve Anthony Shand, who got 6 1/2 years Wednesday with two years’ supervised release.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the four bodies just north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota on Jan. 19, 2022.

A nearby weather station recorded the wind chill that morning at -36 degrees.