This article discusses the 2019 trade conflict between the Republic of Korea and Japan. For both countries, this conflict can be called fundamental because of the difficult history of their relations, as well as the reason that served as the beginning of the trade war - the decision of the Seoul court, according to which Japanese companies had to pay compensation to victims of forced labor during Japan's colonization of the Korean peninsula. The purpose of this article is to use the method of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) by Thomas L. Saaty assesses the probability of resolving the trade conflict between the Republic of Korea and Japan at the moment. To calculate this probability, a control hierarchy was built, including hierarchies of benefits and risks with the same alternatives, and the Super Decisions software implementing AHP was used. Criteria for hierarchies of benefits and risks were also formulated based on the history of relations between the Republic of Korea and Japan and their current stage. The obtained result showed that at the moment the probability of resolving the trade conflict between Korea and Japan is low, so the settlement is impossible due to the difficult historical memory, personal hostility between the population of the countries and the tense relations between Seoul and Tokyo. At the current time, neither the Republic of Korea nor Japan are making any attempts at rapprochement, so it can be assumed that this trade conflict will not be resolved in the near future, and the states will have to deal with its consequences.