Taiwan media have misinterpreted a speech by President Trump to mean big new tariffs are coming for semiconductors. They aren't.

His numbers were rhetorical – arguing what past presidents should have done, not a warning of what he's planning.

He also indicated the tariffs had do to with Intel, which had "lost its way" and asked him for help, and framed the 10% stock deal as protection money.

Here’s the text, and a link to the speech below:

President Trump: "Intel. Intel is a good, really good company. But what happened is, stupid presidents allowed the chip business to leave our country and go to Taiwan. And, stupid. All they had to do is put tariffs on they wouldn't have left. In other words, Taiwan, if you're going to sell chips to America, you're going to got to pay 100%, got to pay 200%, 50%, anything and you wouldn't have had— But they didn't do that until I came along.

And what happened is Intel became old and tired and got in trouble. And they came to see me. The head of Intel was a nice man actually, and he said, “Sir, I need your help.” And he said why, whatever it was. And I said, “Well, you came to the right place. I’m the only one that can help you…I said, here’s the deal. Give the United States of America 10% of Intel." Now, the thing was worth like $120 billion. You know, it lost its way, but it’s still worth a lot of money. I said, “Give the United States of America 10% of Intel and I’ll get this problem solved." He stood up immediately and said, “You have a deal.” And I said, “I should have asked for more.” [51:13]

Source: Dan Nystedt