{"id":7893,"date":"2026-02-27T11:05:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T11:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=7893"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:06:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:06:06","slug":"how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\/","title":{"rendered":"How TACO Provides Certain Uncertainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Paul Friedman<\/a><\/p>\n

After the stock market took steep drops in reaction to President Donald Trump\u2019s initial tariff decisions, it has since stabilized and even soared, despite the persistence of tariffs-fueled economic anxiety persists. According to Academy of Management Scholar Adam Galinsky<\/a> of Columbia Business School, one reason is that the level of uncertainty surrounding the early Trump tariffs has been reduced by a new kind of adaptation to the President\u2019s continuing announcements of tariff changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cUncertainty is a powerful thing, and markets, in particular, perform negatively in the face of uncertainty,\u201d Galinsky said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTariffs have always created two things: One is the potential of increased costs to companies and consumers, but also uncertainty, because Trump never seemed to stick with his plan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout clearly knowing his plan, no one could plan effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, Galinsky observes, as time went on, the markets started to notice a pattern in Trump\u2019s about-faces on tariffs, and some people even gave it a name: TACO, an acronym for \u201cTrump always chickens out.\u201d Many people made humorous posts while it was trending on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want certainty, and the phrase \u2018Trump always chickens out\u2019 is actually a form of certainty,\u201d Galinsky said. \u201cThe market is basically saying, \u2018We don\u2019t need to worry about the tariffs because Trump\u2019s always going to give in.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s pattern of talking tough and then chickening out has actually been pretty effective, because it\u2019s a pattern that people understand and it becomes its own form of certainty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even though his specific stance on tariffs for a given country can still change by the day, investors are becoming used to his pattern of talking tough and not following through. That\u2019s why, despite the many economists predicting economic volatility or even a recession on the horizon, the markets have reacted more optimistically to recent steps in President Trump\u2019s tariff negotiations.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note:<\/em> After this article was written, President Trump did impose tariffs on many countries\u2019 imports. In November 2025, the United States Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments debating whether the president has the authority to levy tariffs on any goods imported into the U.S. through executive orders. On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump that “the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose sweeping, open-ended tariffs\u2014striking down the legal foundation for a central pillar of the administration\u2019s trade strategy,” according to Brookings<\/a>, which noted “The decision removes the fastest tool for imposing broad country-level duties, but it does not end the tariff debate.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Friedman After the stock market took steep drops in reaction to President Donald Trump\u2019s initial tariff decisions, it has since stabilized and even soared, despite the persistence of tariffs-fueled economic anxiety persists. According to Academy of Management Scholar Adam Galinsky of Columbia Business School, one reason is that the level of uncertainty surrounding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7405,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,75,19,78],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[842],"class_list":["post-7893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communicating","category-investors","category-leadership","category-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow TACO Provides Certain Uncertainty - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The level of uncertainty surrounding the macroeconomic impact of Trump tariffs has been reduced by a new kind of adaptation to the President\u2019s continuing announcements of tariff changes and the Supreme Court's recent decision.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Paul Friedman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Paul Friedman\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c798773d2b2b451f04d76dea2233ddd1\"},\"headline\":\"How TACO Provides Certain Uncertainty\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-02-27T11:05:35+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-02-27T16:06:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":444,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/08\\\/Young-woman-enjoying-tacos-with-friends-scaled.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"COMMUNICATING\",\"INVESTORS\",\"LEADERSHIP\",\"POLICY\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-taco-provides-certain-uncertainty\\\/\",\"name\":\"How TACO Provides Certain Uncertainty - 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According to Academy of Management Scholar Adam Galinsky of Columbia Business School, one reason is that the level of uncertainty surrounding…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7893"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=7893"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}