HONG KONG — South Korea said Monday that it would investigate whether its workers suffered any human rights violations during a raid by U.S. authorities as President Donald Trump insisted that he did not want to “frighten off” foreign investment.
Foreign workers are “welcome” in America, Trump said on social media Sunday after the emotional return of more than 300 workers to South Korea. But their detention following a raid by immigration authorities at a Hyundai plant in Georgia has stunned South Korea, a key U.S. ally.
“I understand that the government is conducting a more thorough review with the companies to determine whether any human rights violations occurred,” presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said at a news briefing Monday, according to the Yonhap news agency.
“The foreign ministry is looking at whether our demands were properly addressed, and the companies are also conducting their own reviews, to check whether any measures were insufficient on either the Korean side or U.S. side,” Kang said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement referred NBC News to the White House for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Seoul said Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau “expressed deep regret” over the incident in a meeting with his counterpart Sunday.
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 United States 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 said those arrested in the operation either were 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 United States.
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!” he added.
Trump said foreign workers had expertise in 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.
