Following Taiwan Semiconductor, Samsung and SK Hynix also avoided Trump's 100% chip tariff thanks to American chip manufacturers

According to the Zhitong Finance APP, South Korea's top trade negotiator, Ryu Han-kyu, stated on Thursday that the two major memory chip giants in South Korea—Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—will not be subject to the U.S. government's imposition of a 100% tariff on chips. Ryu emphasized in a radio program that, among all exporting countries, South Korean chip exports will enjoy the most favorable chip tariff rate granted by the U.S. government based on a recent trade agreement reached between Washington and Seoul. However, he did not provide further details.

U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Wednesday local time that the U.S. will impose approximately a 100% tariff on chips from all countries that are not produced in the U.S. or do not plan to produce chips in the U.S. However, companies that have committed to manufacturing in the U.S. or are in the process of building chip manufacturing plants will not be affected.

"In other words, we will impose approximately a 100% tariff on chips and semiconductor products. But as long as you build a factory in the U.S., you will not be taxed. Companies like Apple, even if you have not yet started mass production, as long as you are in the factory construction phase or have clearly committed to participating in the U.S. factory plan, you will not be taxed," Trump stated on Wednesday.

Following Trump's remarks, Apple's stock price rose over 3% in after-hours trading, while TSMC's stock price increased over 4%. On Wednesday, Apple announced an additional $100 billion investment in the U.S., which will be used to manufacture glass covers for iPhones and watches entirely in the U.S. Apple had previously committed to investing $500 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, bringing its total investment commitment in this round to $600 billion.

Known as the "king of chip foundries," TSMC has already built its first large chip factory in Phoenix, Arizona, and is expected to begin mass production of 4/5nm chips in the second half of the year. At that time, it will manufacture high-end SoCs, next-generation high-performance AI GPUs, and AI ASICs for major U.S. clients such as Apple, NVIDIA, AMD, Qualcomm, and Broadcom, making it one of the most advanced logic chip manufacturing lines in the U.S.

The structure of TSMC's second chip factory in Phoenix has already been topped out, with a goal of large-scale production in 2027-2028, planning to mass-produce 3nm and even more advanced 2nm chips.

Trump's remarks are not an official announcement, and many details remain unclear.

According to some analysts, although the specific content of the trade agreement between South Korea and the U.S. has not been disclosed, it is conceivable that Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix may be exempt from Trump's 100% tariff due to their U.S. factories. Samsung Electronics will join Apple's U.S. supply chain and has invested in building two large chip manufacturing plants in Austin and Taylor, Texas, and has signed a $16.5 billion chip supply agreement with Tesla to produce Tesla's next-generation AI6 chips at its Texas factory. SK Hynix has announced plans to build a large advanced chip packaging plant in Indiana, as well as a large R&D facility for artificial intelligence products.

"Although both Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix have announced investment plans in the U.S., it remains uncertain whether SK Hynix's construction of an advanced chip packaging plant alone is sufficient to fully obtain tariff exemptions," said Bai Jixian, a senior analyst at AUO Securities, expressing caution about SK Hynix's ability to completely avoid tariffs. "In contrast, Samsung not only benefits from its investment in the U.S. but also from the latest news that it has joined Apple's U.S. supply chain." Apple Inc. announced on Wednesday that Samsung Electronics will supply high-performance chips for Apple products such as the iPhone from certain chip production lines located in Texas.

After the Korean stock market opened on Thursday, Samsung Electronics' stock price rose 2.6%, leading the large-cap stocks, while SK Hynix's stock price increased by 0.6%, consistent with the overall performance of the Korean stock market. Both companies declined to comment on Trump's remarks.

The second quarter financial report showed that SK Hynix surpassed the long-time storage chip leader Samsung Electronics in quarterly revenue for the first time, becoming the world's largest storage chip manufacturer. Samsung Electronics' Q2 performance indicated that its revenue from storage chip business, including DRAM and NAND, fell to 21.2 trillion won (approximately USD 15.2 billion) for the three months ending in June. This figure is lower than the 21.8 trillion won reported by its competitor SK Hynix, marking the first time SK Hynix has topped the global storage chip market.

The driving force behind this historic shift is the strong demand for HBM storage chips from major clients such as AI chip leader NVIDIA. According to statistics from market research firm Counterpoint Research, SK Hynix currently holds a 62% market share in the HBM market, which is crucial for NVIDIA and significantly more profitable than traditional DRAM and NAND, while Samsung's market share is only 17% and is still struggling to obtain certification for its advanced HBM from NVIDIA. HBM (High Bandwidth Memory) is essentially a type of 3D stacked synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) that belongs to the DRAM storage family