Trump concerned arrests of South Korean workers could ‘frighten’ investors

NEW YORK – US President Donald Trump on Sept 14 said foreign workers sent to the US are “welcome” and he does not want to “frighten off” investors, 10 days after hundreds of South Koreans were arrested at a work site in Georgia.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the 79-year-old Republican wrote: “I don’t want to frighten off or disincentivise investment.”

Some 475 people, mostly South Korean nationals, were arrested at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery factory, operated by Hyundai-LG, in the south-eastern US state of Georgia on Sept 4.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials alleged the South Koreans had overstayed their visas or held permits that did not allow them to perform manual labour.

The Georgia raid was the largest single-site operation conducted since Mr Trump launched a sweeping immigration crackdown across the country.

Though the US decided against deportation, images of the workers being chained and handcuffed during the raid caused widespread alarm in South Korea.

Seoul repatriated the workers on Sept 12.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called the raid “bewildering” and warned on Sept 11 that the raid could discourage future investment.

In his post, Mr Trump described the circumstances for temporarily allowing foreign experts into the US to build “extremely complex products”.

“Chips, Semiconductors, Computers, Ships, Trains, and so many other products that we have to learn from others how to make, or, in many cases, re-learn because we used to be great at it, but not any more,” Mr Trump wrote.

“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 in the not too distant future,” he added.

South Korea’s trade unions have called on Mr Trump to issue an official apology. AFP