On Sunday, President Trump used his personal social media channel to calm a growing diplomatic storm with one of America's closest allies, South Korea.
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“When foreign companies that manufacture extremely complex products, machinery, and other things, come to the United States with huge investments, I want them to bring their people with their expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people how to manufacture these very unique and complex products,” the president wrote on Truth Social , adding, “I do not want to scare or discourage investment in America from foreign countries or companies. We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say that we will learn from them.”
The post was about the September 4 raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at a facility in Georgia jointly operated by Hyundai and LG Electronics. The Korean companies make batteries and electric cars there. The Korean workers were there to train American personnel.
ICE made 475 arrests during the raid, including more than 300 South Korean nationals—many of whom it claimed held valid visas that allowed them to work in the U.S. Afterward, authorities paraded chained Korean workers in front of television cameras.
Seeing their compatriots in chains angered many in South Korea, where columnists published articles with headlines such as “Imperial Tyranny, Korea’s Humiliation.”
South Korean presidential spokesman Kang Yu-jung told local media that the government was looking into the incident to determine whether human rights violations had occurred.
U.S. trade policy requires foreign companies to manufacture their products on American soil, a goal that Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, has spent years pursuing to attract investment from Korean companies in the hope that it will boost the local economy and create high-skilled, high-wage jobs.
But this ambition now seems more difficult to realize, after the ICE raid.
Incidents like the raid on the Hyundai/LG factory will likely undermine US policy to restore national manufacturing capacity and capability, despite President Trump's attempt to reassure and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau reportedly expressing "deep regret" over the incident.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
