"Regret" for what? Every bit of this was Trump admin policy, including the arbitrary rounding up of everyone in sight, the appalling conditions of their confinement, and the delayed release.
Is anyone in the Trump admin / DHS / ICE getting fired over it? No. Are any policies being changed? Also no.— Max Kennerly (@maxkennerly.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 3:36 PM
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He can’t come right out and say it, of course, but it sounds like Prez Trucknutz realizes his ICE goons fucked up at the Hyundai plant.
— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:40 PM
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A senior US state department official on Sunday (September 14) expressed regrets over the recent mass detention of South Korean workers in America and vowed to prevent similar occurrences.
en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN2025…— FujiiPonta (@fujiiponta.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 9:15 AM
… Landau also said U.S. President Donald Trump has a keen interest in the matter and ensured that those who have returned home will not face any disadvantages when reentering the United States. The state department official said Washington would try to ensure there would be no further incidents of a similar nature in the future.
Landau proposed working-level talks on issuing proper visas for South Korean workers in the U.S., citing a need to provide institutional support for South Korean corporations’ investments that contribute to the American economy and manufacturing.
In response, Park touched upon inconveniences that South Korean workers faced while in detention and said the general public in South Korea, in addition to the workers themselves, felt deeply shocked by the crackdown.
According to the ministry, Park also strongly urged the U.S. to take practical steps and implement systematic improvements to ease South Korean people’s concerns.
This is what happens when you put kids in charge..
Trump’s Hyundai Raid Drains U.S. Battery Brains: The United States can’t build the powerful technologies on its own
foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/12/h…— Angry Donkey News (@angrydonkeynews.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Christina Lu, at Foreign Policy — “The United States can’t build the powerful technologies on its own”:
For all of its efforts to drive a domestic manufacturing boom in key industries, the United States remains heavily reliant on Asian expertise to build batteries, the powerful technologies that underpin drones, electric vehicles, and much more.
It’s a reality that was laid bare last week when U.S. immigration officials raided an EV battery plant construction site in Georgia and detained around 475 workers, most of whom were South Korean nationals. The plant is co-owned by Hyundai, a South Korean carmaker. U.S. authorities said the raid was the biggest single-site enforcement operation in the Department of Homeland Security’s history.
The raid ignited a diplomatic firestorm with longtime U.S. ally South Korea and has cast a spotlight on the state of the U.S. battery sector. Batteries are essential to powering many of the world’s most cutting-edge defense and energy technologies, including military drones and submarines. Yet the U.S. industry remains deeply dependent on foreign know-how to grow its own sector, and experts warn that the Trump administration’s Hyundai crackdown risks further spooking investment…
It’s not unusual for foreign companies to first rely on their own talent when initially scaling up operations overseas and then train a local workforce, experts said.
“The number of Korean employees at the beginning, while they’re transferring the management technology, [is] higher—and then as quickly as they can, they transfer that knowledge, and then they go home, and it’s less expensive for the company,” said Tami Overby, an international business consultant who previously headed the U.S.-Korea Business Council at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
South Korean President Lee Jae-myung made a similar point on Thursday: “This isn’t long-term permanent employment but to establish facilities and equipment for factories; we need technicians to install machinery and equipment. The U.S. doesn’t have such personnel, and they won’t give visas for [our workers] to stay and work.” He warned Washington that South Korean businesses would “hesitate to make direct investments” in the United States if it failed to resolve visa issues quickly.
—–The Hyundai case has exposed the state of U.S. battery manufacturing expertise. Today, the world’s biggest battery powerhouse is China, which produces more than three-quarters of all batteries sold globally—and does so significantly more cheaply and efficiently than its global competitors—according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). China is the source of more than 70 percent of all EV batteries ever produced, driving ample manufacturing and production expertise.
After China, South Korea and Japan are global battery giants that have made hefty overseas investments. Korean firms in particular top the charts in overseas manufacturing capacity, and last year Korean producers filled more than 20 percent of global electric car battery demand…
To fuel a U.S. battery boom, the Biden administration harnessed its landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which used hefty tax incentives to encourage domestic manufacturing and drive new investment and interest in the sector. The IRA was “game changing legislation,” Manish Dua, an analyst with Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, said in 2023. “Massive outlay of subsidies and tax credits has boosted private sector participation across the whole cleantech space.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has gone in another direction entirely, with an onslaught of moves meant to gut the U.S. clean energy sector, unwind many of the Biden tax credits, and unleash more fossil fuel production. The Trump administration’s targeting of EVs—a key market for batteries—has injected fresh uncertainty into the U.S. battery sector, as has its trade war with China, which dominates battery supply chains…
—–
Days after the Hyundai raid, Trump himself acknowledged that there was a gap in U.S. battery manufacturing that foreigners have helped plug. “You don’t have people in this country who know about batteries,” Trump said on Sunday. “Maybe we should help them along and let some people come in and train our people.”Yet U.S. immigration rules and the Hyundai raid—which has sent shockwaves through other Korean and international firms—also risk deterring the very investment that Trump has been courting as part of his big plan to build up U.S. manufacturing might and push companies to bring production to the United States. The United States lacks a visa program for foreign companies that wish to bring in skilled workers for a short-term period for construction purposes, the Washington Post reported.
The fallout from the raid may already be biting. South Korean officials said on Thursday that Trump offered to allow hundreds of those arrested workers to stay in the United States to train an American workforce. But only one Korean worker decided to stay, the officials said…
After the raid, South Korean firms have halted work on at least 22 projects in the United States, and Hyundai’s chief told Bloomberg that the incident had resulted in a “minimum two to three months delay” on the battery plant…
===
“Our employers told us it was ok… I will never visit ???? again. It feels good to be free.”
Hundreds of South Korean workers detained in shackles landed home, met by family who tearfully hugged them.
Arrested building a factory to employ thousands. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/w…— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 8:43 PM
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— Linda Marie (@lindam174.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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hundreds of millions of dollars vaporized from the georgia economy because a bunch of good ol’ boys who would have been too racist for the 1990s wanted to impress kristi noem
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) September 14, 2025 at 3:29 PM
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Meanwhile in Korean media there is clarity that Trump directed this raid out of spite following his Oval Office meeting with the ROK President, who pushed back aggressively on Trump's praise for the North Korean dictator. They're right. US media have no clue of what's going on.
— Scott Horton (@robertscotthorton.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 1:29 PM
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And I bet party of the reason they went after that facility it’s supposed to build batteries for electric cars. Because they want to eliminate electric vehicles.
Everything they do is stupid & nihilistic— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 5:38 PM
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That Hyundai/LG plant is in Ellabell, GA, which is in Bryan County.
Bryan County voted for Trump over Harris by 36 points.— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 5:22 PM
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And why is that plant in Georgia?
Because governments in the South build infrastructure for & give massive tax breaks to foreign auto companies, & bc despite the UAW trying for decades to organize those plants white southerners consistently vote against joining a union
Because, you know, Detroit— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 5:31 PM
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If South Korea did to Americans working in South Korea what the US did to South Koreans working in the US Fox would be “Nuke Korea” 24/7
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 4:32 PM
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This is as huge a scandal & blunder as this chaotic Administration has seen.
The person who should be called to answer for it is Secy Kristi Noem. When a woman who loves the camera as much as Noem is nowhere to be seen for 10 days it’s b/c she’s hiding out. Media should be all over this.— Sherrilyn Ifill (@sifill.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 9:24 AM
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I generally think the SK business will cost people's jobs, because it's incredibly humiliating for the jobs and manufacturing president to have factories that he "negotiated for" get shut down.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) September 14, 2025 at 2:32 PM
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Words fail me…
— Jennifer Shin (@jennifershin.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 8:31 AM
Ohio Mom
When this is over (god willing in my lifetime), we will have to have big, Nuremberg-type trials for the sake of world, for a first step in repairing our relationships with those who once considered themselves our allies.
Searcher
I think what’s throwing ICE/the Trump administration for a loop is that they are used to the people they abuse being low-status without the support of a government to defend them. When they do this to someone from many other countries, and then dump them somewhere where at best they’re powerless and at worst they’ll be locked up or killed, that person just disappears and no one knows or hears about how they were treated.
But the Korean government does, you know, care how their citizens are treated.
J.
@Ohio Mom: I wish, but it ain’t gonna happen. Republicans almost always get off scot-free. (W. ginned up a war and what about the millions who died from Covid due to Trump and his followers? Nothing.)
Baud
@Searcher:
Most countries do, and liberal Americans do. It’s only American Republicans who don’t because they see themselves as a separate country within the country.
Lapassionara
We need to know now precisely how and why this happened. WHO initiated the process, who signed off on it. Who manages the crew who treated these people as subhuman. And what did trump know and when did he know it?
Josie
The only way to appease South Korea would be for those responsible for this debacle to be identified and punished. Good luck on that happening.
ColoradoGuy
The South Koreans will NEVER forgive, or forget, this national insult and deliberate abuse of their workers. For the very good reason that MAGA is racist all the way through, and this incident exposes them on the international stage.
Trump, and his billionaire pals, will think they can buy off South Korea. Nope. When you show all of Asia the Ku Klux Klan is running the USA, they’re not going to forget.
hueyplong
I spent about 30 seconds yesterday being genuinely surprised at the wonton cruelty and evil. Now I’m just embarrassed by the knee-jerk assumption of microscopic bits of humanity possessed by Trump underlings and resolved not to be so naive going forward.
gene108
Yup, Trump 2.0 is all about letting people’s crazy racist uncle let their freak flag fly, while crazy racist uncle has a high level job with the U.S. government.
The levels of racism that are being pushed by the Republican party right now is going to leave us so much worse off. I honestly don’t know why these folks think undoing 60 years of social progress can be undone seamlessly, and not unravel the well being of the country economically, socially, and from a security standpoint.
Also, I wonder how much of U.S. industrial stagnation in things like battery technology is due to Wall Street demanding increases in year over year earnings or punishing companies for not meeting earnings targets? There’s a lot of short term thinking in U.S. businesses due in large part to maintaining share prices to keep Wall Street happy.
Betty
@Lapassionara: The attitude starts at the top with Trump and Miller with the policy carried out by Noem and Homan. The blame needs to rest there, not with some low level apparatchiks.
ExPatExDem
8,500 jobs.
That’s the cost of South Korea halting its US projects.
kindness
Increasingly Republicans are proclaiming they are the only citizens in the US. They feel the rest of us are a drain on their nation and are openly thinking about ‘final solution’ solutions
History is repeating itself.
ColoradoGuy
@ExPatExDem: It’ll be a lot more than 8,500 jobs. This deeply racist incident will resonate over all of Asia, and will affect how Asian movers and shakers see the USA.
MobiusKlein
Disband ICE
It’s corrupted and it’s function must be recreated fresh
JML
And the people in charge have absolutely no clue about any of it. They don’t have any understanding of the consequences of an international incident like this (because they’re too arrogant, stupid, and inexperienced), aren’t going to actually make the policy changes necessary to prevent another one (because they’re too stupid, lazy, and incompetent), and simply can’t comprehend that this is a result of their actual policies working as designed. (because they’re too stupid, arrogant, incompetent and racist to actually have any self-reflection)
They’ve also been systemically dismantling the research and grant capacity of the US which is how schools position themselves to actually train people up on these technologies domestically, because every company in the US has systemically dumped most of its training capacity back on the colleges and universities. So now the only way to get that training done is for the school to develop customized training regimens for the companies…but the companies won’t pay for it unless it’s subsidized by someone, even though they know they need it.
gene108
@ExPatExDem:
8500 jobs is in Georgia alone. I’m not sure what the national impact will be.
Anyway
I hope this is a drag on Kemp and his ambitions
Elizabelle
@J.: Yeah. We should just lay down and die, right? Nothing will ever come of even trying to hold Republicans to account. We shouldn’t even talk about it!
Elizabelle
Perhaps the South Koreans will learn to make their investments in solid Blue states. Or just avoid this country for a few years, because it’s too unstable.
Although. This could have happened in Illinois, too. The cake is, it happened in Georgia, cracker heaven.
matt
Well, at least there’s the consolation that a huge pot of Georgia taxpayer dollars spent on incentives got vaporized.
Sandia Blanca
Kristi Noem’s firing would be the only indicator that this numbskull action wasn’t trump’s plan (per the Scott Horton post above). DJT can make all the “maybe we should do things the smart way” noises in the world, but if Noem and Homan keep their jobs, they are just empty words (as usual).
mappy!
I wonder, did this happen because it might help Tesla?
Belafon
@Searcher: South Korea has leverage with the big companies in ways that other countries don’t. Plus, most Americans don’t think of South Koreans the same way they do Latinos.
hueyplong
It took these Nazis about 8 months to firmly establish worldwide opinion that we’re no better than China and in any event less reliable. Stability itself requires countries to view us as adversaries.
It’s an amazing accomplishment. In terms of credibility, we’re an Atlantic City casino writ large. Soon the parallel will be on many subjects.
Belafon
@Lapassionara: We know who started it, the woman in Georgia who wants to be the next Greene.
TS
@ColoradoGuy:
Not just Asia – it is all related to trust & no country can trust the US given how the trump administration has acted on the international stage.
Belafon
@gene108: Something i read early this morning described how England wasn’t ready for WW2, and it pointed out that England used to be the big manufacturing center of the word, but the people there got tired of the factories and the smog and figured out how to export the production and just live off of the profits. Sound familiar?
matt
Also there’s the consolation that Trump’s big economic policy is to attract foreign investment to the US, and he’s too stupid to run the country in a way that makes that viable at all.
hueyplong
@Belafon: That theory seems flat-out ahistorical to me if it’s being offered as something more important than the many other, objectively accurate theories long in place about British preparedness in 1939.
Belafon
@hueyplong: It wasn’t claiming it was the only reason, just pointing out what happened to manufacturing.
schrodingers_cat
Asians haven’t forgotten or forgiven the bounties of the so called Age of
ExplorationExploitation visited on them. The Colonial enterprise of the western countries is not that long ago in the past. The capricious use of tariffs to punish countries like India. Is not going to be forgiven in generationsMai Naem mobile
I’ve had a few Korean American acquaintances. Almost all of them have been Republicans. I don’t know if it’s because they seem to be evangelical Christians or if it’s like the Cubans with Fidel Castro and them with NK. Anyhow, I wonder how many of these people will be voting GOP. Voting changes in small slivers of the population can make the difference in close elections.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: One part of America absolutely obsessing over a movie that includes tons of Korean culture and history, and consuming music, tv shows, movies and other media. And another part attempting to destroy our relationship with that country.
Lapassionara
@Belafon: Yes, but she did not have the authority to send ICE to the plant. Someone else made the decision to do that. Who was that? Did Kristi Noem make that decision? If not, who did. If so, why does she still have a job.
Suzanne
@ColoradoGuy:
They’re racist, and they’re stupid.
I will never forget or forgive. Anyone who voted for this clown…..
hueyplong
@Belafon: Seems like what happened to manufacturing was the Great Depression and the old school economic reaction to it, along with the horrifying, we-can’t-do-this-again thinking so soon after WWI that led them to be slower than maybe they should have been to realize that Hitler was going to do what he was going to do regardless of the level of appeasement/encouragement that he turn eastward.
Peale
@Sandia Blanca: I doubt she’ll be fired. I think Trump has already crashed out with voters and reached his floor on the immigration crackdown. Maybe we’ll get a few marginal votes of sincere idiots who thought that there were actually 20,000,000 immigrant rapists in the country who Biden let in on purpose to kill white people and are shocked to find out that the 20,000,000 includes an Irish Grandmother who once wrote a bad check and Korean engineers who are building factories. But that’s it.
Trump’s base is giddy about this because they get to claim that the Koreans were going to just staff those 8,500 jobs with illegals anyway.
Lapassionara
@Betty: I agree, but how? Was Trump really retaliating for some perceived slight, as the story suggests? If so, this is a very big deal, and Dems in Congress should be calling for hearings. This incident needs more publicity. It is a big effin deal.
gene108
@TS:
What Republicans will not understand is Trump’s tariffs not only go against U.S. law, but international trade agreements the U.S. has spent the last 80 years getting countries around the world to sign on to.
Between the Iraq War and Trump, the U.S’s credibility is gone. The world never knows when we’ll elect another wannabe despot to the White House.
Mai Naem mobile
I find it hard to believe Noem/Miller/Homan didn’t know about the raid. Because they’re all so stupid the light bulb didn’t go off in any one of their brains that ‘hey, there’s a Hyundai plant going up there, it makes sense that there’s Koreans there.’ Noem was a fucking governor for crying out loud. I guess she never went abroad to try and bring new business to her state. Guess she was too busy screwing around with Lewandowski and going to the plastic surgeon.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: There is zero reason to trust us.
gene108
@hueyplong:
The utter disbelief in France and Britain that anyone would want to start another continent wide war, after WW1, has a huge influence on the posture of those countries, even after Hitler invaded Poland and they were technically at war with Germany.
Peale
@Belafon: That part of the country that’s in love with the culture is getting hit with tariffs on all the fan merch they’ve been ordering and is not happy about that. And also not exactly pleased that the visas of their artists aren’t being processed quickly enough for them to perform live.
Not that this is personal or anything. Not that I am in that group. But I did have to pay $28 to receive my package of overpriced fan goods and the concert I was supposed to go to tomorrow has been postponed until March because they couldn’t get visas for everyone in the band.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree. Decades of trust have been vaporized.
Peale
If she did go abroad, its because plastic surgery in Korea and Thailand is a steal.
Jackie
@Lapassionara:
I see Stephen Miller’s fingerprints all over this.
Peale
@gene108: Yeah. But that really doesn’t matter for them. Miller wants a US that is 40% smaller than it is today. And I think they think that they can just do that, exit global trade for a few years while they get rid of the immigrants and kill off the liberal opposition, and then just turn the global leadership thing back on when it suits them. The internal purge is more important to Miller than anything else. If people don’t have jobs and are starving, the more the better!
WTFGhost
“The inconveniences”?
When you’re assaulted, shackled, and imprisoned in inhumane, degrading, conditions by the Secret Police, those are “inconveniences”?
And they’re assured, by the people who have been shitting on their heads, that they can come back to the US, without new barriers of entry, as if having someone shit on your head is such a pleasant activity, you want to come back for more?
The Press has gone from “covering” for Trump, all the way to aiding and abetting.
Peale
@Jackie: Yep. If you were paying attention the first time around, Korea is pretty high up in the chain of countries to decry for “ripping us off.” There’s a certain amount of animosity towards Koreans for not being poor like they were in 1952…and that prosperity needed to come from somewhere…so it must have been ripping us off somehow.
hueyplong
@gene108: Yes, as evidenced by the 8 month sitzkrieg/phoney war of ’39-40.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: I was in India 10 days ago. And everyone I met from Rahul Gandhi partisans to Narendra Modi fans, let me know how much they hate what the US under T2.0 to India.
Tariffs was how India was deindustrialized by Victorian Britain in the 19th century. Indians are not going to forget this. No matter their political orientation. Indians (and many Asians) have generational memories of being under the heel of the capricious and cruel white people.
jonas
Foreign companies have to keep stockholders happy, too. I think the bigger problem is a simple lack of a coherent industrial policy. Biden was really the first president in recent times to think in those terms and implement big policies to see it through. Of course that’s all being blown up now so we’re back to fumbling around in the dark through a bunch of economic chaos to get anything done.
The rest of the world is moving towards EVs and electrification and the US is simply going to be left in the dust with no technical talent pool or industrial infrastructure to catch us up.
Jackie
@Peale:
I believe Noem had extensive dental work done in Mexico, back when she had FFOTUS’s VP dreams.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: There’s a whole lot of space between “Nuremberg will never happen here” and “we should just give up and lay down and die”.
@J.: J. said the former, but not the latter.
ItinerantPedant
I tink the only thing mitigating this AT ALL, is N Korean missiles and CW stockpiles aimed at S Korea. There is only so far S Korea can go in telling the US to f^&k right on off.
bluefoot
“inconveniences that South Korean workers faced” Wow, that’s one way to put being put into detention with inhumane conditions. JFC.
This administration is blowing up any standing the US had in the world. I was in Canada last month and Canadians have no interest in coming to the US. Customs at Pearson for US entry was nearly deserted except for the people working there. It was eerie. But telling.
Central Planning
@JML:
You’re right. If you considered POTUS as a game, they are playing a finite one – they see the game as something to win, and as being over when the term is over. They don’t give a shit about the future or the future of the United States. The goal of the infinite game should be to make the US a better place for its citizens, and a place where the world wants to invest. If you don’t do that, the game will be over.
Also, I recently read Finite and Infinite Games by James P. Carse. He shows that finite games may offer wealth and status, power and glory, but infinite games offer something far more subtle and far grander (thanks review on the back of the book!)
Kelly
This article in the Tennessean says Korean LG employees went home from a GM Spring Hill Tennessee battery plant after the Georgia raid.
archive.is/YZqRP
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thank you for the scolding. I am in the club!
Mo MacArbie
I know it’s just a typo up above, but it seems particularly unfortunate in this context. *wanton.
And Nuremberg is a category error. When the victorious occupiers have somehow found a way to bomb Bumfuck into resembling 1945 Berlin, then I’ll hope for Nuremberg.
Peale
@schrodingers_cat: IDK. The Indians I work with in Delhi seem less upset by the tariffs than they are on Trump saying things that indicate that he might just back Pakistan in the future.
Mike in Pasadena
@Mai Naem mobile: Most of the Vietnamese boat people in Orange County, California vote for Rethuglicans because of fear of SOCIALISM and Commies. That’s how effectively R propaganda has been when they label Dems as Socialists.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Makes sense. Trump wants a mercantile economy. Europe’s embrace of mercantilism in the 18th and 19th century impoverished Asia.
Peale
@jonas: We apparently are going to be the only major power in the next war with drones that run on diesel fuel.
Peale
@gene108: Yep. The longer this goes on, the more the voters in the countries that are supposed to be our closest allies in the region are going to look at the extortionary tariff policy as an attempt by the US to force an unequal treaty on them. Again.
Old Man Shadow
Welcome to America. You may at any point for any reason be arrested, imprisoned, and systematically humiliated by brutal agents of the State. But please give us money and investments.
rikyrah
when I saw the first video saying that they WANTED THE PEOPLE TO BE HANDCUFFED ON THE BUS TO THE PLANE – AN ALMOST 5 HOUR RIDE…
WHAT THEE ENTIRE PHUCK!!!
rikyrah
Sherrilyn Ifill
@sifill.bsky.social
ICAM
Her and Homan.
They are always on the tv, loud and wrong. They are quiet as church mice pissing on cotton.
iKropoclast
To be fair, that is the correct way to look at the tariff policy.
schrodingers_cat
@Peale: I was in Mumbai. And they may not be as open with an American who is not of Indian origin. The people I am describing are close friends and relatives.
Bill Arnold
@mappy!:
Musk’s reputation within the T2025 administration seems to be decaying. Also, the anti-electric-car dogma in the administration continues to be strong. It let up for a bit for Musk, but he’s gone, though he’s still aggressively fascist.
Certainly worth tracking (as a possibility), though.
pieceofpeace
@JML: Yes, this. And note the big smile on Landau, inappropriate as hell, looks disrespectful and he looks like a goofball, which is an appropriate word for describing his lack of understanding, humility and respect for South Korea.
Is someplace keeping a master list of our diplomatic disasters under Trump’s governance?
schrodingers_cat
We are here because NYT thinks Biden’s comfy shoes and Hillary’s email server were bigger stories than T2.0 upending 90 years of American trade policy.
hueyplong
@Mo MacArbie: I very much appreciate the assumption of a typo.
Harrison Wesley
@hueyplong: And given Trump’s history with casinos…..
rikyrah
“I was the last remaining Black full-time opinion columnist at the Post, in one of the nation’s most diverse regions. Washington D.C. no longer has a paper that reflects the people it serves. What happened to me is part of a broader purge of Black voices from academia, business, government, and media — a historical pattern as dangerous as it is shameful — and tragic.”
https://karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-washington-post-fired-me-but?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2bz6j
iKropoclast
@schrodingers_cat: Well, the NYT and other media orgs are owned by billionaire investors who knows full well that Trump breaking the government will create opportunities for the unscrupulous.
They don’t care if everything around them crumbles as long as they have a position near the top of the rubble.
Sister Golden Bear
@Searcher: Bullies and narcissists are invariably surprised when they discover the hard way that other people have agency.
Mart
I went to a foreign owned wind turbine factory start-up meeting around 2005. About 25 folks were milling around. Between the clothes, hair cuts, and eyeglasses figured a bunch of dirty Europeans. When I was I introduced to the plant manager I asked where you folks from? He said we are mostly Danish. Me – why’s that? We are the experts. Depending on the wind we get 1/3 to 1/2 of our power from wind. After they got the joint up and running all but two went home. A few years later those two were headed to China to build out wind turbines there. The Plant Manager gave me a big hug goodbye, and I hugged him back. A very impressive person. What we did to those Korean start-up folks in GA, I can’t even. Sometimes you need a helping hand to get things going.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: I just don’t like to see a long-time Balloon Juice person, who is now an infrequent commenter, get a response like that.
If you want to be offended by my stating a fact, have at it.
trollhattan
@Mart:
Vestas?
They’re installed in several California sites.
Anonymous At Work
Hyundai’s skill workers should finish their work under contract with Trump Organization, not Hyundai. $2000/hour, minimum 40 hours/week, and 50 weeks, all paid in full up front.
iKropoclast
@Anonymous At Work: Even if Trump paid up front, he’d probably try to pull some hare-brained scheme with Monopoly money.
JaneE
The conditions were dehumanizing and degrading. Unacceptable human rights violations if the people had been undocumented workers. Legally working foreign citizens makes it even worse. The Koreans were doing SOP for a new venture. It didn’t used to be a problem.
When I worked for a foreign-owned company there were “shareholder representatives” in every department, and one for each country in many departments. They were there to make sure that we Americans knew what we were doing and could work to their standards. Some people took offense, and some people found out they could learn a lot from people who did it a little differently back home. As they developed confidence in the ability of Americans to work the way they approved of – very little change for most of us – the shareholder representatives went back home, or off to another assignment. Executive management was always shareholder representatives until the company sold again. The top guy is from the company that bought us. Big surprise, that. Not.
Asian countries place more emphasis on shame, and what was done to the Korean workers was shameful. Shameful for Americans too, but many won’t realize that.
Mike in Pasadena
The needless humiliation and cruelty is all a planned part of the anti immigrant operation of Heimat Sicherung Amt (Homeland Security) and ICE operations. Racist gestures by pulling at the outside corners of their eyes, by shackeling engineers and technicians, confining them in cramped cold facilities. This is all part of trumpty dumpty’s racism and lack of management. Mister president only needed to assemble about four people in the room: Marco, Kristi, Little Marco, and Nutnick and say: “Although I ended incentives for purchasing EVs because of bribes I received from the oilies, I also want foreign investment and factories here employing Mericans. So, make sure you chucklefucks don’t humiliate and deport foreign workers who are building factories and training ignorant Mericans.” That’s all he needed to do, and if his order wasn’t executed properly, fire Kristi and Rubio for not controlling ICE and Li’l Marco for not getting the right Visas in the hands of foreigners. But Orange Man was too busy playing golf and watching himself on teevee to do his job, manage his people! Every Rethuglican voter is responsible for Operation Fuckup. And I’m going to tell every Rethug I know that they are responsible for voting for President Seat Warmer and for every fuck up he makes. Battle cry of Rs in the nineties was “take responsibility.” I plan to shove that phrase up their asses.
trollhattan
@Bill Arnold:
My assumption it’s a pro quo for some prior Musk quid. That GA plant is an obvious direct competitor at a time Tesla’s brand has been trashed in the eyes of people who actually buy EVs.
rikyrah
@ColoradoGuy:
this is so absolutely on point.
Shakti
@schrodingers_cat:
My parents went to visit family in India and I was busy trying to parse whether regular mail was being sent, (b/c parcels aren’t) how many things they could bring in their luggage due to the “fuck you” tariffs.
Literally the same effect as when India had protectionism and hadn’t liberalized the economy and it was considered dodgy to send parcels through the mail, so every time we went to India, we’d be carrying gifts for our relatives but also all of our friends’ families. And bringing them back. And our friends would return the favor.
They were going to visit this summer but they had to move their flight b/c yay, the Trump administration was like “we’re going to let Israel, a country with nuclear weapons, start a fight with Iran and ignite a hot front into World War III” and all of the flight paths run over Iran or the Middle East.
They’ve never moved a flight like that, and they’ve never been afraid to fly.
rikyrah
@ExPatExDem:
That’s the beginning. for this one project.
It’s going to spread
hueyplong
@rikyrah: Totally agree. The 8500 is only a direct consequence related to the one program, totally free of collateral considerations as discussed in this thread.
Literally any token “regret” will satisfy the lapdog US media, but the rest of the world won’t buy it and will act/plan accordingly.
Mart
@trollhattan: Siemens Energy.
Kirk
@Peale: This.
Kill exports and imports because we should be self-sufficient. Get rid of the non-whites in the nation, who form about 45% of the population.
Make it the self-sufficient white nation (their) god expects, and that will make them truly dominant to all the world. Or so they believe.
Ocotillo
Well, maybe since the Lord and Saviour Charlie Kirk who died on Friday did not raise from the dead on Sunday, the media can move on and give this story the air that it deserves.
ETtheLibrarian
Why does Landau think any of those people will ever come back to the US (at least over the next few years). He likely burned brides to the waterline for some forever. Not that trump et all care because, they don’t.
Shakti
a@rikyrah:
From my anecdotal knowledge of Korean immigrants, and from K dramas, Koreans are legendary when it comes to grudges. Don’t cross an umma.
Hyundai wants to continue with the plant (sunk costs I’m sure play a part).
It seems like the plant is there b/c Hyundai wants to avoid dealing with a strong union like it has to do in Korea. Hyundai thinks the delay in setting up the plants could be 2-3 months. But which workers would be willing to come here and risk the capriciousness and vile treatment of the US government, even on short term visas to set up the battery plant?
I don’t believe the woman who claims she narced to ICE b/c of safety concerns for the workers, one little bit.
The chilling effect on other projects that aren’t as far along — I’m sure isn’t measurable.
iKropoclast
@Ocotillo: I’m just shocked that not one murder has occurred in the entire country since then…
JML
@hueyplong: these are also well-paying jobs, often in places that really need them.
All of it is far to subtle for an administration whose economic policy is based on a cycle of tariff/bribery.
schrodingers_cat
Wrong thread.
JoyceH
South Korea is unanimous in their outrage over the treatment of their workers, which was no worse than the usual – ALL detainees are treated that way. It’s no accident, it’s deliberate. The Supreme Court has given Trump, and Noem and Homan, the green light to racially profile, so it’s open season on Hispanics. There are seven million undocumented Hispanics in the country — and over SIXTY million Hispanic-American citizens. Citizens are going to be swept up in these ICE riots, we know some already have. When are American citizens going to get as outraged over the inhumane treatment of our citizens as South Korea is now over the treatment of theirs?
Nettoyeur
@ColoradoGuy: The loss of face has to be a major issue. Trump et al would have to do a major kowtow to expiate that. If they won’t even recognize the problem, good bye SoKo (and maybe other Asian) direct investment in US.
Nettoyeur
@ExPatExDem: In GA only, I think. Could be more in total US.
iKropoclast
South Korea has a democratically elected leader. Otherwise, Trump would be happy to.
Karen Gail
Back in the “dark ages” (before the internet) a teacher in a business class told us that when you provide good service to a person that person will tell between 1 to 5 people about their experience. If you provide bad service or fail to provide any service or fail to address complaint, that person will tell between 13 to 20 people. Now, a bad experience can end up being shared with thousands and totally destroy that business.
So not only will those South Korean workers tell family and friends it has gone viral for anyone who has access to internet. It won’t just destroy a business but what was left of businesses in that area, who knows the impact will probably be nationwide for generations.
We need to give credit to where credit is due; congratulations to all those who were willing to lash out at anyone not white enough or from another country!
Elizabelle
South Korea and Brazil dealt well with their intending coup leaders. Prosecuted and convicted, and fairly expeditiously.
Citizen Alan
@TS: And no country can trust America even after Shitgibbon leaves. Because now everyone understands that, every four years, there is a decent chance that a plurality of voters will give supreme executive power to the dumbest and most morally depraved person who seeks the job.
patrick II
There are many frustrating things about this affair but the most galling to me is that, well after they should have realised their mistake, ICE kept trudging on. The South Koreans did not leave for three days. The first day of the arrest — they were put in chains. The chains, which were unnecessary to begin with since these were a group of technicians they were arresting for no real reason with no connections to any sort of crime, drug violence or otherwise. The chains had been laid out in the hot Georgia sun before chaining the “prisoners” (read nice techie guys who were here to teach and help American workers). The chains were hot, so the captives (I won’t call them prisoners anymore) received burns on their way to the detention center. The detention center was itself ill-lit and filthy.
We should note how much “face” counts in most of Asia. Treating someone with less dignity than they deserve is hurtful in a way that goes beyond what most of us might feel. These captives were horrified, as their government would later be horrified when it found out what was going on and the treatment of its citizens.
By the next day, the Koreans had sent an airliner to bring their people home. But they did not go. ICE still insisted that they wear chains on the bus trip to the airport. This is already horrifying to any decent American, but this extra humiliation on top of what they had already suffered is macabre. The local ICE thugs did what ICE thugs do, but at this point, someone a little higher in the chain of command should have changed the tenor of the manner in which we were treating the Korean technicians. By then, a more complete view of the facts of the situation should have worked its way up through the ICE organization, Madison Shehan, Deputy Director of ICE, Ted Lyons, Director, Christi Noem, and President Trump. Plus others whose role I am not sure of — Steven Miller, and that big lug fascist of a guy who I keep seeing on TV defending ICE like a fat Steven Miller. Normally, within a chain of command like that, someone along the way would have been intelligent enough to say — no, we’ve made a mistake. They should not be exported, and certainly not bound in chains at this point. We should release them and apologize. But no one in this group is smart enough to acknowledge mistakes, or even to consider it might be a mistake, nor to understand the deep grievance the Koreans would have after seeing their good citizens treated in such an illegal and undignified manner. They live just south of an unlawful police state, they know and hate government without laws, and as for the loss of face, this was not just a loss of face for the individuals involved but for the whole South Korean nation. You cannot underestimate just how angry they are, and not just the government. The ill treatment of their fellow Koreans is all over the news in South Korea. The conduct of the Americans is universally abhorred. It will take a long time to repair our relationship with them. So, add that on to Canada, Greenland, the Netherlands, and other ex-friends whom we are now alienating and creating not just outrage and distrust, but hate and anger. It is going to take us a long time, if ever, to get past the damage Trump and his minions have done to our status in the world.
As for the Korean captives, Korea rented its own bus and took the captives to their chartered flight itself. Even after three days, they had to work out this compromise to get their people home. No one with any brains was involved in this; they have no intelligence at all. Starting from the ambitious lady candidate who first reported four visaless Koreans to ICE, who went to the plant and said “Oh, my God, foreigners! Let’s arrest them all,” and kidnapped 350 people illegally, to anyone in their chain of command up to the president, none of them had, even three days later, taken steps to correct their atrocity.
Citizen Alan
@gene108: Makes perfect sense to me. Most of our problems in this country today arise from the utter refusal of both moderates and liberals to seriously grapple with the fact that, yes, the slave states are still bitter about losing the Civil War and, later, the CRA and VRA and want to punish us all for it out of revenge and hate.
Westyny
@mappy!: You’re not the first to speculate. At present, I’m still chalking it up to utter incompetence.
gvg
@Josie: I want them identified and punished and processes and policies put in place to prevent it.
I really think this goes back to Bush authorizing torture though. Some Americans have lost their humanity. And it’s not video games. It’s fox news plus not seeing enough of the world to be aware that other countries are full of people not non player characters.
rikyrah
@patrick II:
superb comment. thanks.
Uncle Cosmo
Yeah I wondered (for an eyeblink) what Chinese ravioli had to do with the topic. Yet another illustration that blythe reliance on spell-checkers won’t prevent intellectual embarrassment if the misspelling of the intended word is itself a word. You would think that a gaggle of Jackals who pride themselves on their alleged intelligence would have learned that years ago…and yet it keeps happening.
gvg
No ICE prisoners should be chained. That is apparently policy. That’s nuts. That is itself criminal. IF they are dangerous criminals with actual charges, then handcuffs. That would be with specific individules and warrents. It would probably be done by real police after a crime. These round ups never qualify. This revelation to me is the most infuriating. It should be bringing charges from top to bottom of the organization, but we have masked disguised thugs, not real police. Gee now I wonder why they are masked? Some state needs to start charging them even if it is masked perpetrator #1, 2 etc with all attached photos descriptions, actions time and place with witness statements and let people identify them. I bet the crowd could find them. kidnapping? Improper arrest? Abuse? Lying to courts?
iKropoclast
@Uncle Cosmo: I was under the impression the person posting left or placed the misspelling deliberately because they enjoyed the pun.
...now I try to be amused
@gene108:
It’s like Trump is determined to replay every discredited economic policy of the last 300 years. Is a return to the gold standard next?
JoyceH
@gvg: They’re masked because the Trump administration doesn’t want the public to know who they’re hiring. Which I assume is because they’re hiring Proud Boys, J6ers, militia members, and those fired by other law enforcement due to brutality and/or corruption.
Harrison Wesley
@…now I try to be amused: Nah, we’re more modern. We’ve got Bitcoin.
Uncle Cosmo
Again I wondered for an eyeblink what proactive suttee had to do with the topic.
…and for dogsake don’t get me started on homonyms…
Anne Laurie
Thomas Homan, Acting Director of ICE.
(Kristi Noem is officially Secretary of Homeland Security.)
patrick II
@patrick II: They.were held seven days in detention, not three as I wrote above. It makes it even more senseless that ICE wanted to keep them chained up on the bus to the airport.
Kayla Rudbek
@…now I try to be amused: crypto being an equivalent to gold is already enmeshed with the current maladministration
Will
I’m guessing no one in this thread bothered to read the dive Bloomberg did on this plant and the raid.
What caused the raid? Shockingly, it started with minority owned businesses complaining that too many of the minority contracts were going to Asian contractors, sometimes Latino. African Americans were filing grievances that the plant was only hiring Asians and that all training was also being done by foreigners.
So a bunch of South Koreans ended up deported over anger at how minority hiring and contracts were being handled.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-11/wealth-and-jobs-sparked-anger-before-ice-raid-at-hyundai-plan…