President Trump is poised to issue a new tariff warning that could significantly impact South Korea’s semiconductor industry, particularly the memory chip sectors dominated by Samsung and SK Hynix. Recent reports indicate that these tariffs threaten an export turnover of approximately $10.7 billion to the U.S. market.
This development follows the temporary exclusion of semiconductor chips from the “reciprocal tariff” package announced by the U.S. government on April 2. However, President Trump has confirmed that a separate tariff specifically targeting the semiconductor industry will be implemented soon.
The anticipated tariffs are expected to have severe repercussions for South Korea, where the semiconductor export structure is heavily reliant on memory chips, accounting for 63.4% of the nation’s total semiconductor export revenue. Samsung and SK Hynix lead the global market in dynamic random access memory (DRAM) production and exports.
Industry analysts suggest that memory chips, being a major export for South Korea, will face greater challenges from the new tariffs compared to system chips. Additionally, both Samsung and SK Hynix have key memory chip manufacturing facilities located in South Korea and China, making it difficult for them to sidestep these tariffs.
In contrast, Micron, a direct competitor based in the U.S., is boosting its production capabilities at home. Samsung and SK Hynix, however, have invested primarily in contract manufacturing and chip packaging facilities in the U.S., limiting their ability to manufacture memory chips on U.S. soil and evade tariffs.
Concerns have been raised within the industry that South Korean memory semiconductors may lose their price competitiveness against Micron. Analysts warn that the impact of these tariffs could be considerably more severe for South Korean memory chip manufacturers than for Taiwan’s TSMC, which has a robust position in contract manufacturing.
As the technology sector and global chip makers closely monitor Mr. Trump’s forthcoming decisions regarding the specific tariffs and their timing, the potential ramifications for the competitive landscape in the global semiconductor market are significant.
