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Donald Trump called on multinational companies to “respect” US immigration laws but admitted experts from overseas should be allowed to come to the US to train American workers in the wake of the arrest of South Korean workers in Georgia.
US authorities last week arrested 475 workers at a Hyundai electric-car battery factory, the majority of them South Korean nationals, in the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s largest single-site enforcement raid to date.
The raid was carried out by hundreds of federal and state agents at the construction site of a joint venture between Hyundai and battery maker LG Energy Solution, two of South Korea’s biggest companies.
The move marked a dramatic escalation in Trump’s efforts to curb illegal immigration, drawing sharp criticism in South Korea and raising questions about whether the immigration crackdowns would undermine future foreign direct investment in the US.
On Sunday, South Korean officials chartered a plane to repatriate the detained workers after negotiating their release with their US counterparts.
In talks with the US, South Korean president Lee Jae Myung had “stressed that our companies’ business activities and our workers’ rights should not be unfairly infringed in the US law enforcement process”, said the president’s chief of staff, Kang Hoon-sik.
But Trump insisted to reporters late on Sunday that the incident had not strained US-Korean relations, saying: “We have a great relationship with South Korea, really good relationship. You know, we just made a trade deal.”
The US and South Korea agreed a trade deal in July that would impose a 15 per cent tariffs on the east Asian country’s exports. Trump said at the time that South Korea would also invest $350bn in the US.
Speaking on Sunday, however, Trump also suggested that companies should be able to bring in specialists to coach American staff.
“When they are building batteries, if you don’t have people in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe we should help them along, and let some people come in and train our people to do, you know, complex things, whether it is battery manufacturing or computer manufacturing or building chips,” Trump told reporters as he returned to Washington late Sunday after attending the US Open tennis tournament in New York.
“ICE was doing right because they were here illegally,” Trump added, in reference to the Georgia raid.
“But we do have to work something out where we bring in experts so that our people can be trained so that they can do it themselves. Does that make sense?”
In a later post on his Truth Social platform, Trump called on foreign companies investing in the US to “please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws”.
“Your Investments are welcome, and we encourage you to LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so,” Trump added.
“What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers. Together, we will all work hard to make our Nation not only productive, but closer in unity than ever before.”
Additional reporting by Christian Davies in Seoul
