Dow Jones, quoting South Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, has reported that talks between South Korean and USA officials about possible postponement of trade tariffs against troubled memory manufacturer Hynix Semiconductor failed. Final decision for the imposing import duties is expected to be taken on the 12^th of June, but actually there is no doubt that the final verdict will be similar to preliminary ruling we reported in this news-story.

Representatives of the South Korean Ministry named “differences in opinion” as well as “unconstructive attitude of US corporate interests” as two main reasons that caused negotiations to fail. Obviously the Korean Government alludes that the US Department of Commerce defends interests of Micron Technology, a US memory manufacturer, which is in deep financial trouble. If Hynix is withdrawn from the US market, memory prices may go up (at least Micron hopes that they do), thus, the US company will be able to reduce operating loss that achieved $619 million in its last quarter (see this news-story). Quite similar thing can be said about the European Commission’s decision, except that on the place of Micron there is Infineon AG. The German company also suffered from substantial operating loss last quarter, measuring about $380 million, mainly from memory operations.