In a sign of the close ties that have been strained by the raid on one of South Korea’s biggest U.S. investment projects, the country’s top trade envoy was heading to the U.S. on Monday as the two countries work to hash out the final details of a tariff deal agreed in July.
About 475 people, including more than 300 South Koreans — 307 men and 10 women — were detained in the Sept. 4 raid on the battery plant by U.S. immigration and other federal officials who said they were investigating allegations of unlawful employment practices.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that those arrested in the operation were either working illegally or had overstayed their visas.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung has called the raid “bewildering,” adding that it would discourage future investment into the U.S.
But Trump said that need not be the case.
“I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivize Investment into America by outside Countries or Companies,” he wrote in the Truth Social post.
“We welcome them, we welcome their employees, and we are willing to proudly say we will learn from them, and do even better than them at their own “game,” sometime into the not too distant future!,” the president added.
Trump said that foreign workers had expertise on how to make “very unique and complex products” such as chips and semiconductors.
“I want them to bring their people of expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people how to make these very unique and complex products, as they phase out of our Country, and back into their land,” he said.
“Chips, Semiconductors, Computers, Ships, Trains, and so many other products that we have to learn from others how to make, or, in many cases, relearn, because we used to be great at it, but not anymore,” he added.
The post South Korea probes human rights abuses in Hyundai raid; Trump says foreign workers ‘welcome’ appeared first on NBC News.
