Trump again floated steep tariffs on imported chips, and Taiwan's government is playing it down — unsettling for chipmakers, but Taipei insists it already has protection on paper.

• At a Republican midterm rally in Dallas, Trump said tariffs of 50%, 100%, even 200% on chips would have kept production from leaving the U.S.
• Taiwan's cabinet says a trade memorandum signed with Washington in January already gives it most-favored-nation treatment on any semiconductor tariff.
• That tariff has not actually been launched yet, so Taipei will keep using government-to-government channels to negotiate duty-free quotas and which products get counted.
• Officials brushed off the rhetoric, saying they will keep building up the industry regardless of what Trump says on any given day.
• Trump also accused Taiwan of funding anti-Trump think tanks; the foreign ministry says its academic contacts span the U.S. political spectrum and stay out of domestic politics.

Outlook: Nothing changes for chip exporters until Washington actually publishes the semiconductor tariff, which is when Taiwan's promised exemptions get tested.