President Donald Trump is demanding foreign companies hire American workers after hundreds of South Korean workers were detained in a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia.
Writing on Truth Social Monday morning, Trump addressed foreign companies directly.
“Following the Immigration Enforcement Operation on the Hyundai Battery Plant in Georgia, I am hereby calling on all Foreign Companies investing in the United States to please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws,” he wrote. “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. What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers.”
About 300 South Koreans were among the 475 people who were arrested Thursday at a Georgia plant manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles operated by Hyundai Motor and LG Energy Solution. The Department of Homeland Security touted the raid as the “largest single-site enforcement operation in the history of homeland security investigations.”
Seoul announced Sunday that the government had brokered a deal with the United States to return the workers to South Korea, pending the completion of some administrative procedures.
The South Korean government wasn’t too pleased that the Trump administration had detained scores of its citizens working abroad, and warned that the “economic activities of Korean investment companies and the rights and interests of Korean citizens must not be unfairly infringed upon during U.S. law enforcement operations.”
South Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo reportedly said that it was regrettable that the raid had taken place at “at a critical time, when the momentum of trust and cooperation” needed to be maintained between the U.S. and South Korea.
Trump has made efforts to court investments from multiple foreign companies, as part of his efforts to boost domestic manufacturing, but it seems that his hard-line immigration policies may put him at odds with the foreign governments.
The post Trump Threatens All Foreign Companies After Massive Hyundai ICE Raid appeared first on New Republic.
