President Donald Trump called on foreign companies on Sunday to prioritize the training and hiring of U.S. workers in industries with shortages in domestic talent.
Trump’s comments came after the arrest of nearly 500 workers at a Hyundai car battery plant still under construction in Ellabell, Georgia, on Thursday. Of the workers arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents for being in the United States illegally, about 300 were South Korean.
While Trump said ICE was “right” to arrest the workers because they were in the country without legal status, he conceded there is a shortage of U.S. citizens seeking to fill job vacancies filled by migrant laborers. Praising his relationship with South Korea, the president offered foreign companies a deal: The White House will seek to expedite visas for foreign laborers in the U.S. “legally” if those companies “hire and train American workers.”
“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,” Trump said in a Sunday evening post to Truth Social. “What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers. Together, we will all work hard to make our Nation not only productive, but closer in unity than ever before.”
“You know, when they’re building batteries, if you don’t have people in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe we should help them along and let some people come in and train our people to do, you know, complex things, whether it’s battery manufacturing or computer manufacturing or building ships,” Trump added in remarks the same day at Joint Base Andrews. “But we do have to work something out where we bring in experts so that our people can be trained so that they can do it themselves.”
South Korea’s government expressed “concern and regret” over the raid at the $7.6 billion Hyundai factory, which is one of Georgia’s largest electric vehicle manufacturing sites. On Sunday, the country announced it had negotiated the release of the workers. Kang Hoon-sik, the South Korean president’s chief of staff, said a charter plane would take the workers home, adding that South Korean government agencies would work with companies to improve the visa system for migrants traveling to the U.S. for jobs to prevent similar detainments in the future.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Monday she didn’t believe the incident would deter foreign investment in the U.S., characterizing the ICE raid as a “great opportunity for us to make sure that all companies are reassured that when you come to the United States, you’ll know what the rules of the game are.”
“We’re encouraging all companies who want to come to the United States and help our economy and employ people, that we encourage them to employ U.S. citizens and to bring people to our country that want to follow our laws and work here the right way,” Noem said at a meeting in London.
The incident highlighted the tensions between industry leaders and the White House over the targeting of those in the country illegally who fill jobs that U.S. workers typically decline. Migrant laborers often fill blue-collar jobs in the hospitality, construction, and agriculture sectors, while foreign-born workers are widely viewed as vital to filling critical STEM jobs.
At Joint Base Andrews, Trump called the affair at the Hyundai Georgia plant “interesting,” telling the press, “We’re going to look at that whole situation,” but that the incident had not harmed his “great” relationship with South Korea.
“I’m going to look at it because I understand exactly what they’re saying,” he said. “We have a lot of industries that we don’t have anymore, and we’re going to have to train people.”
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One way Trump has sought to capitalize on legally bringing foreign-born talent to the U.S. is through “gold cards,” which allow companies or individuals to purchase worker visas on behalf of another person.
“I get calls from, as an example, companies where they want to hire the No. 1 student at a school. Person comes from India, China, Japan, lots of different places. And they go to Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance, they go to Yale,” the president said earlier this year. “And they make job offers, but the offer is immediately rescinded because you have no idea whether or not that person can stay in the country. I want to be able to have that person stay in the country. These companies can go and buy a gold card, and they can use it as a matter of recruitment.”
