Two weeks before a high-profile immigration raid on its facilities in Georgia, Hyundai Motor’s chair was in Washington with a host of South Korean business magnates and US executives to trumpet their countries’ “manufacturing renaissance partnership”.
“Just as US support helped Korea rise from the ruins of war to become a manufacturing powerhouse, it is now our turn to contribute to America’s industrial revival,” South Korea’s leftwing President Lee Jae Myung told a reception held to celebrate Korean companies’ pledge of $150bn in new investment in the US.
Now the backslapping is over. A raid on a battery plant being built by Hyundai and fellow South Korean conglomerate LG in Georgia has taken the shine off their US expansion plans. US authorities arrested 475 workers, including hundreds of South Korean nationals, in last week’s raid.