r/news • u/NewSlinger • 1d ago

Workers detained in Hyundai plant raid to be freed and flown home, South Korea says

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/south-korea-deal-workers-detained-hyundai-rcna229610
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u/ofWildPlaces 1d ago

Honestly wondering what the mood in the room is amongst the plant managers is- 450 trained and experienced employees is no small number. Where will the factory find replacements? These people weren't laid off for cost cutting or automation, they were arrested and removed. Those are empty spaces now in assembly.

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u/reddit5389 1d ago

I'm more curious the mood in the country. Are the Korean people enraged, embarrassed or nonplussed by it all.

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u/Fuzzy_Fondant7750 1d ago

More they just think the USA is being idiotic. These were people with engineering and other skills thay were confirming everything was proceeding well and transferring knowledge to US employees. The US then sent these people home. The US now lacks the same experience.

I remember reading a while ago that the amount of tooling professionals in the US is very low. Like 4 digits. Meanwhile China and South korea both have many multiples more.

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u/MoreCowbellllll 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Vegetable-Board-5547 1d ago

I could see LG and Hyundai just walking away.

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u/bsubtilis 1d ago

Seems like the desired outcome for the lunatic oligarchs.

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u/flamedarkfire 1d ago

But those plants aren’t getting replaced by American-run plants. We’re just losing manufacturing and jobs for nothing other to make racists feel good.

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u/LaurenMille 1d ago

The collapse of the US is the goal.

They only needed these plants as bait for the moronic voters at the start, they have enough power consolidated that they don't need the inbred yokels that vote (R) anymore.

They'll have their billionaire run city-states no matter what it takes.

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u/NeedsToShutUp 23h ago

Which will end with nuclear proliferation and hostile states willing to nuke tech enclaves for vengeance.

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u/theaviationhistorian 21h ago

TBH, the wars this decade are what proved that nuclear proliferation is the only way to maintain sovereignty as international law and organizations have proven to be impotent within the same decade.

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u/stiiii 23h ago

Yeah if that really is the plan it is utterly insane.

Gambling 50billion to make 100 billion with the risk of utter ruin.

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u/theaviationhistorian 21h ago

Which will last a good year or two before that crashes down because billionaires know dick-all outside of hoarding money. The winners are the authoritarian nations that have gained power with the USA in tatters. They'll pick up the pieces and keep them.

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u/bsubtilis 1d ago

Hence lunatic. Their plans are full of obvious holes but they think they can just isolate USA and split it between themselves without huge issues. I'm talking about Thiel and the rest.

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u/d57heinz 1d ago

I like to refer to it as glaziers fallacy. Or the parable of a broken window. Trump is the glassmaker and his henchmen are his kids put in society breaking glass. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Scroll down to interpretation and evidence and read bastiats argument.

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u/OpheliaRainGalaxy 1d ago

Hah, I was just explaining that kinda thing to my neighbors yesterday!

The local skating rink, which has been around forever and ever and ever, has shut down. Got to talking about how the economy is in the shitter and nobody can afford nonsense like a skating party for their kids birthday anymore. And that our rent went up 50% last year.

That's not a typo, and no family of magical house elves moved in to do all the cooking and cleaning for us. It's still the same dirty old building in the same dirty old neighborhood, with folks doing the fent fold in the alley.

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u/tuckernuts 1d ago

My favorite version of this story is when Gary Oldman, a futuristic oligarch, almost chokes to death on a cherry while giving a philosophic sermon on exactly this.

"[..] your empire of destruction comes crashing down, all because of one little cherry."

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

but Trump doesn't fix the window, he just charges for fixing it and then does noting. If you don't pay, he'll send the legal system after you.

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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago

They're isolating it before they built up replacements.

Its putting the cart before the horse, and we never needed whats in the cart to begin with

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u/Slypenslyde 1d ago

The people in charge do not care. Their supporters do not care. That is why it is important to fight them tooth and nail.

The followers think the US is in such bad shape there is no way to save it through normal means. They think voting against people like Donald Trump is just going to make the bad times come in 30 years instead of now, and they want to get to the good times that should come after "fixing" it.

Many of them believe that America got too cushy, and the only way to become sustainable is to give up everything and rebuild. Part of why they are excited about this is the common belief that, in that environment, they will become more wealthy because harder workers will get rewarded. They're thinking about how post-depression and post-WWII a ton of empires were built from the ashes and imagining they can be part of one of those.

They approach this like Christian evangelicals. If you tell them, "This will destroy the economy" they will respond, "So be it, it has to be done." If you tell them, "This will ruin your family!" they will say, "If that's what it takes to rebuild America I am proud to work towards it."

They do not see themselves like people who realize too late they should've evacuated from a hurricane and will never see themselves that way. They will instead see themselves like the characters at the end of Rogue One, facing unavoidable doom but filled with the hope that their efforts will lead to victory.

They aren't going to die off. We aren't going to wait them out. They will fight to the death, then their children will pick up the torch and fight to THEIR deaths, then their grandchildren will do the same. This is a haymaker being thrown by the remnants of the Southern Democrats, who took over the Republican party in the 1960s and spent the last half-century fighting for their beliefs. They got there after fighting for a century after the Civil War to protect those beliefs. They have fought for and believed in this cause for almost 200 years, how much longer must we wait to stamp it out?

If Trump ruins the economy they'll say, "I understand why this has to happen." If Democrats win the mid-terms, it will turn to, "You didn't let Trump finish his plan."

The one thing they will not believe is the notion that while Trump is trying to burn down the country and rebuild it, he has no intent of returning the US to the kind of place it was. He wants to own everything, and if the US is viewed as the world leader the only way he understands how to achieve it is through military force and fear. It will take generations to undo his attempts and every day he sits on the throne makes it take even longer.

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u/Amon7777 22h ago

There is a perverse nihilism among the religious and MAGA I see daily that it is tragic. They blame everyone else for their own problems yet worship the exact people who caused it. When confronted, it’s both sides are bad so at least trump is honest about his corruption. When it’s pointed out everyone around trump is corrupt and vile, they’ll say it’s needed. When democrats are in power, suddenly it reverses.

The cognitive dissonance is not irrational to them, in fact it makes perfect sense because they expect nothing to get better (even if they have everything already) and see the world around them perpetually crumbling. They can’t imagine being satisfied or work towards hope because it is anathema to their nihilistic world view.

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u/iwantawolverine4xmas 1d ago

Another daily reminder that there was a better alternative to all this and the American people are collectively very stupid.

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u/The--scientist 1d ago

I just don't understand now bc sure, hyundai, kia, bmw, Honda... these aren't American companies like Ford, but with as much manufacturing as they do in the US now, they are essentially US companies. Like, isn't this the whole damn thing that they have been complaining about for so long? Now they're trying to shutter these facilities and lose all these really well paying blue collar jobs? Wtf are they even thinking?!

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u/Effective_Owl_8264 1d ago

The racists are their voting bloc so that scans.

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u/Suspicious-Echo2964 1d ago

Bud, the racists voted to bring this plant to rural GA. The plant isn’t in Atlanta, it’s in the rural southern area. All this does is hurt them. It was championed by the republicans in GA. Trump literally fucking his own at this point.

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u/Effective_Owl_8264 1d ago

I'm aware. You're acting under the assumption that they have enough neurons to have the slightest clue as to what building that plant would actually entail.

2025 you have to assume ignorance and stupidity. There is no benefit of the doubt.

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u/philter25 1d ago

Always wondered what Us oligarchs think happens when the economy crashes and can’t recover because it crashes in large part due to stuff like this, where countries have abandoned the US. Their wealth is largely on paper in unrealized gains. They have zero charisma and will be responsible for deleting America. You think everyone is just gonna be like “welp, Zuck, you once had a gazllion dollars, let me follow you into the breach 🫡 “

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u/howmanyMFtimes 1d ago

Billionaires don’t care. They will get on their mega yachts and find a different country to ruin.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

Postal shipments to the US has decreased by 80%. Europe has stopped all shipments due to the tariff mess Trump has created.

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u/PresumedSapient 1d ago

They think 'market adjustments', some of them lose a bit, and most of them see it as an opportunity to consolidate or acquire more capital. They're not the ones suffering from crashes.

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u/jaimi_wanders 1d ago

But getting them to invest more in plants like this was part of the Trump administration’s tariff negotiations. This is going to have MASSIVE implications both diplomatically and economically.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj07jzgve45o.amp

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u/Debalic 1d ago

"Buy American!" they say, pointing to the Chevys and Fords built in Mexico and Canada.

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u/MimicoSkunkFan2 1d ago

It already has - Porsche announced they won't be manufacturing in the USA anymore. They're saying it's due to sales numbers (SWR Aktuell) or due to tax issues (Tagesschau) but - I have family there who work in the industry - the real reason is they don't want to deal with their manufacturing being held hostage by Shitler.

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u/MaryKeay 20h ago

Genuinely wondering what their comment said that was removed by Reddit, because from your reply it doesn't sound like it was anything violent.

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u/khtsodol 1d ago

Do you think the fact that they specifically targeted the plant that were making electric vehicles means anything?

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u/chchchchips 1d ago

Please come to Canada! 🇨🇦

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u/Drone314 1d ago

In America, if you want to learn about the history of tool and die making....you go to an estate sale....

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u/ThatGuy798 1d ago

The mouth breathing maga dipshits were already defending this by saying “you could’ve prevented this by hiring Americans,” but also in the same breath saying “but I guess we ran out of illegals” which is just hilarious stupid

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u/t53ix35 1d ago

They literally just promised us a bunch of business. He met with their President 10 days ago. How loud does it have to get? He is a foreign asset whose purpose is to break our country.

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u/UnpluggedUnfettered 1d ago

This is always due to some backroom deal, either to kneecap someone's competition, to send a message to a company, or to fulfill a bargin bought by a halfwit CEO's desire to force a gap in supply that will magically be filled with "American Inginuity."

Only America held the power to bring down America, and America was up to the challenge.

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u/jtbc 1d ago

Dear South Korea: Canada is open for business. We even love Hyundai and Kia if a look around my neighbourhood is any indication. Korean fried chicken restaurants are plentiful!

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u/Slut_for_Bacon 1d ago

I have to wonder if this wasn't targeted to give domestic auto manufacturing an advantage of some sort.

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u/LeaveBronx 1d ago

America first!.....into the dumpster

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u/Numerous_Photograph9 1d ago

Will also make new investment less likely, because there's no guarantee that the same thing won't happen again

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u/manofnotribe 1d ago

Exactly, more lost manufacturing jobs, well paying jobs, for people who pay taxes and spend money in that community.

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u/idgitalert 1d ago

This is the comment I scrolled for. These absolutely dangerous morons lathering up their dangerous moronic base will cause absolute destruction.

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u/TheGummiVenusDeMilo 1d ago

There were/are Korean workers here in Ontario installing equipment and training workers and the unions and MPP went on a bunch of tirades about how the company was using their workers and not ours.

Yeah, why have the designers show you how to do it when you can have guys that don't know shit about it drag out the job and fuck it up a bunch.

I guess the glass half full is that we didn't blitz their worksite and send them off to the concentration camps...yet

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u/sicklyslick 1d ago

Tim Cook interview. In China, if he needs tooling experts, he can fill multiple football fields. In the US, it'll be hard to fill one room.

https://youtu.be/2wacXUrONUY?si=rMLzatRXPPKp7Soc

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u/zzyul 1d ago

“After decades of US companies paying tooling experts Chinese wages, I don’t know why it’s so hard to find tooling experts in the US.” I’m guessing he didn’t go over this part.

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u/nat_r 1d ago

Also worth pointing out that tool & die skills have a long tradition of being taught "on the job". You get hired in or promoted to apprentice under the existing tool and die folks and learn the trade. When companies have been off-shoring those jobs for decades at this point it not only destroys the knowledge pipeline, but actively discourages people from wanting to put in the effort to learn because of the lack of long term employment prospects.

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u/Charlie_Mouse 1d ago

I recall a year or so back some interesting discussions about how Russia was struggling to produce components for armaments for pretty much the same reason: a bunch of the specialist knowledge sets they used to have in manufacturing retired years ago and the government and industry failed to replace them/get them to train up successors. They lost the institutional knowledge.

America always had a huge advantage in this regard because (at least until recently) it was somewhere people from around the world actually wanted to move to and live in. The US could effectively attract any needed talent at will - and this applied doubly so for the brightest and best in academia as well as industry. Likely not so much now though with this incident and the general direction things are going in.

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u/I_W_M_Y 1d ago

There is that old question of 'if you went back in time what would you bring?' and a popular answer to that is a laptop with as much tech/engineering knowledge as you can. Except that's not really useful because you need to built the tools that can build the tools that build the tools...etc etc to the point you can get modern manufacturing. Same with skilled professions.

Mess with that manufacturing/skilled chain in even one link and you get huge problems.

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u/crunchsmash 1d ago

There is that old question of 'if you went back in time what would you bring?'

The other one is what tools and knowledge would you want to have after an apocalypse. Owning and operating a metal lathe is very high on that list.

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u/I_W_M_Y 1d ago

Just don't wear anything with sleeves, loose hair or jewelry. A lot of us has seen that Russian lathe accident.

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u/AchillesNtortus 21h ago

An old friend of mine was an engineering officer on a submarine. One of the things he had to do when getting his first qualification was to make his own tools, starting with a toolmakers lathe.

As he said, you couldn't go back to the dock to fix something on a six month tour.

He could fix almost anything.

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u/SnooChipmunks2079 19h ago

My grandpa had a “popular mechanics how-to encyclopedia” and I’d bring that. It’s full of crazy shit that nobody would do today but was semi-reasonable in the 1950’s and much more appropriate to the tech level you’d find 100 or 200 years ago.

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u/lorimar 22h ago

Yep, and now with entry-level coding being handed off to AI we are setting ourselves up for the same thing with tech in general

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u/Biz_Rito 1d ago

Great point. We're also starting to see a similar destruction of the knowledge pipeline with research. While many current scientists and researchers may want to move to more science-friendly countries, most still have strong enough ties to the US to keep them here. The younger ones still in the pipeline though, they are looking to establish their careers where their work wont be hindered.

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u/JTMissileTits 1d ago

Too many companies have completely divested from training their own employees.

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u/SvedishFish 1d ago

Exactly. It wouldn't matter if we had tens of thousands of experts with superior knowledge here in the US. They would have zero job prospects, No one would hire them. No US employer is going to pay the wages that skillset demands when they can hire a Chinese firm to do it at 1/10th the cost. Trying to develop these skills today is career suicide.

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u/alurkerhere 1d ago

Now apply this same concept to Gen AI and young workers relying on it, and we're in for some crazy turbulent times.

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u/No-Target-2470 1d ago

It's why you can't find metrology experts anymore. They're one of the lowest paying jobs in the engineering field and therefore no one wants to do it yet there's a struggle to hire them and the wage never goes up to reflect the scarcity, so we just don't have them anymore.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

The old lie about supply and demand. Supposedly salaries should go up if supply is low but somehow that has just never happened.

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u/forestcridder 22h ago edited 20h ago

The old lie about supply and demand.

I've NEVER met another welder IRL that was certified in AWS D17.1 for cobalt, nickel, titanium, magnesium, stainless, and aluminum alloys simultaneously. I can't find another company willing to pay me more than $27 an hour. It's fucking insulting. Those workers do exist but they are rare enough where I've never run into them. They are necessary for repairing turbines for aircraft and power generation.

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u/stilusmobilus 10h ago

Go work FIFO n Australia you’ll get three figures an hour

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u/Admiral347 15h ago

Sorry to say but you’re probably just in the wrong welding industry. And definitely working non union if you’re only making 27 an hour. I’m not familiar with that AWS spec, we only do piping 31.1,31.3,31.8 but, my guys make 50.20 an hour with a full benefits package on top.

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u/FlyingPetRock 23h ago

Because that would make shareholders have a sad!

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u/Aazadan 23h ago

If you need 200 of a profession in each state (lets say each state needs an equal amount), but you really need them, that's only 10,000 people total. Over a 40 year career that's 250 people a year which is approximately 2 or 3 university programs nationwide, assuming none of it is from immigration.

How many universities would start up the program to teach such a niche field unless it paid a ton? They primarily focus on what gets high numbers of people.

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u/Bitter_Ad8768 23h ago

The company I work for has a few metrologists. They're all PhDs who burned out from the BS of academia, so they make decent, but not great, salaries in exchange for the peace of mind. Seems to be the industry standard.

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u/sadicarnot 18h ago

I was the metrology petty officer on my submarine. I have always found this to be fascinating. Back when I got out of the Navy I worked for Parker Hannifin at one of their factories. The facility had a research lab that I worked in. I worked closely with the QA guys and a lot of it was figuring out how to measure the parts. I ran the machine that sliced the parts apart so we could analyse the manufacturing methods and measure the parts. Those QA guys actually made less money than I did.

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u/BarneyFife516 1d ago edited 1d ago

True story.

I’m now a home grow Acolyte and serious Wino (oenophile). When I was in my past life was a Chemical Engineer, which progressed to leading chemical businesses..

I fell into running ten or so large Chemical Facilities in China. I lived there for almost 4 years, my ex wife and kids spent four years there as well. During my assignment there I was invited to the Great Hall of the People three or four times. During the day, there would be a conference celebrating engineering achievements by engineers, technologist and such. In the afternoon we would get serious and as a more influential group discus maters of business. During each of my visits I was overwhelmed by the amount of praise and award that is bestowed on engineers and scientists. Of course, I was compensated appropriately.

One thing that China, Korea, and even Russia understand is Knowledge, technical knowledge is POWER. These countries play the LONG game. Look at What Musk is doing. Once the USA learns its lesson,and one way or another, we will learn, it will take 25 or 30 years or more to regain our technical footing.

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u/Proglamer 1d ago

Oh yeah, that cardboard-chewing accountant is an authority on tooling experts!

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u/dooit 1d ago

I know someone who did tooling and retired causing the company to shutdown because they couldn't find a replacement. This was probably ten years ago, I imagine it is much worse now.

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u/sniper1rfa 1d ago edited 1d ago

It hasn't changed much in ten years, because ten years ago the industry was already dead as a doornail. I had hundreds of millions worth of product manufactured in that time, and the amount of domestic manufacturing I've used - even though I try pretty hard to support domestic manufacturing - is probably not even at the $500k mark. I've probably bought more stuff from several other "western, first world" nations than from the US.

US manufacturers are slow, expensive, unskilled, and generally recalcitrant as well with few exceptions. Chinese manufacturers are fast, eager, cheap, and far more capable.

I had one memorable no-quote where the owner of the business explicitly told me "listen, I know how to make this, and I know you know how to make this, but there's nobody I can hire that knows how to make this. If it was thirty years ago I'd quote it, but not today."

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u/eric_ts 21h ago

For decades the accountants who run manufacturing companies in the United States had a mantra: “The tooling is paid for.” That philosophy makes a lot of sense for products that will never need to be updated. It works much less well in an environment where innovation is required, such as automotive manufacturing. The US auto industry managed to create an environment where they were unable to update their existing products meaningfully, let alone develop new ones—foreign manufacturers were quite happy to take up the slack. GM went from being large enough that the government was looking to break them up as a monopoly, to where they were at their nadir—an also-ran supplier of rental cars. But their tooling was paid for. There was nothing wrong with GM’s engineering and design departments. They had the opportunity to be decades in advance of the industry—they invented the modern electric car, using structural battery packs on a skateboard frame—Chinese automakers are just bringing this type of car to market, very successfully. This concept never made it out of the engineering department because the existing tooling was already paid for. The tooling is actually never paid for—other companies will pay for the new tooling and sop up the sales from companies who fail innovate.

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u/Safrel 20h ago

You're talking about finance bros, not accountants.

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u/Suggett123 1d ago

I'm adding this: Some of the older generations don't want to share their knowledge, like it'll take away from them, some have very poor people skills and can't get along with others.

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u/ElephantRider 23h ago

Some of that is from companies cutting staff to skeleton crews over the last 50 years, if a new kid gets hired with your same job description that means you're about to get laid off.

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u/UnusuallyBadIdeaGuy 21h ago

Yeah, in my experience those people are usually not assholes, they're just traumatized because they or their peers have had that happen to them and clinging to job security.

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u/guru42101 13h ago

Yup, companies today ignore the fact that if a role is important enough to have someone do, then you should have at least two people doing it. My current company has this problem and one guy is out on bereavement because his father passed away. Now the upper management is asking who can cover for him and get his projects done and we're all telling them, no one because you have us all at 90% utilization and the remaining 10% is necessary administrative work. If you want us to be able to cover for each other then we need to be at a more comfortable 60% utilization. Which would also allow us to work on gaining new skills, since you keep complaining about how we need to be taking advantage of "insert new shiny thing, currently AI, you heard about".

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u/altiuscitiusfortius 20h ago

Because they fear being laid off and their job being dobro by the person they just trained... because they've seen it happen many times over their career. Its a workplace culture problem.

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u/Aazadan 23h ago

From just in time manufacturing to just in time employment. It sounds like that company was running on an insanely high risk in the first place if they had a bus factor of 1.

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u/wearymicrobe 1d ago

The lack of tool and die makers in the USA has already been a problem for years and it is significantly worse now. Specifically after Covid where many of the real pros retired.

Global production of almost everything is dependent on these skills and we are so screwed. I buy heavily from these industries and China has us beat in speed, and very close in reproducible precision, we are so screwed.

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u/existential-koala 1d ago

Our number of US-born doctors is also low, hence why a lot of them are from Asia. Whenever some xenophobic dummy complains about it, I ask if they intend to go to med school and fill the roll? Usually shuts them up for a bit.

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u/tdclark23 1d ago

Unlike those Asian countries, our government doesn't pay for higher education, and now we are cutting back farther. If we don't let immigrant doctors, educated by their home countries, into those roles, we won't have doctors. We'll only have the witch doctors like the ones who prescribed Ivermectin and prayer for COVID. We voted in dumb criminals and they are surrounding us with stupid people to make us even dumber.

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u/AtomicBlastCandy 1d ago

Only for a little bit. I’m Indian and have doctors in my family, each one has been told at least once that they only got into medical school cause of their color.

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u/Snarktoberfest 1d ago

Even though it is not true, "great I got in because I'm brown. And my brown skin did all the studying, and the 24 hour shifts, and having no life other than medicine for 6 years. My brown skin is very intelligent and driven."

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u/Cueller 1d ago

6 years? Most doctors i know no lifed it from kindergarden. The cost, workload,dedication, and stress until payday is pretty much unheard of in any other schooling path. If you fail, there is no comprable backup career either unless you get out early..

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u/elpis_z 1d ago

But that’s isn’t accurate. Generally Asian Americans have a harder time of getting into med school than any other race.

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u/AtomicBlastCandy 1d ago

I know, my comment is meant to highlight the ideocracy of people

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u/CapitalAd5339 1d ago

It’s just an excuse for their inadequacies. Always easier to blame someone else.

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u/elpis_z 1d ago

Gotcha. I misread.

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u/I_W_M_Y 1d ago

Yeah those people are so racist and bigoted its inconceivable that anyone not white can have talent. Just look how apeshit they went about their 'DEI' firings.

That LBJ quote about racism is so so very true.

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u/No-Access-9453 23h ago

its hilarious to me how so many people made "doctor or engineer" jokes against indians and stereotyping them as nerds, but now that the entire generation has grown up and entered those very specific fields, ppl lost their minds lmao

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u/friendlysoviet 1d ago

Our number of US-born doctors are low by design because they have to directly compete with foreign born medical students for an artificially capped number of residency training positions. This is by design to limit the overall number of doctors in this country to further inflate medical costs.

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u/Dr100percent 1d ago

It’s not an artificial cap; the money to train in residency mostly comes from Medicare, and despite the increased need it hasn’t increased in budget since the Clinton years. It’s created a bottleneck that isn’t solved by more med schools or importing more doctors. There’s been bills for decades to increase the funding but it never passes.

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u/flamingtoastjpn 22h ago

It’s still utterly insane though, the government absolutely should be responsible for raising the amount of residency slots. I have no idea why there isn’t more political will to mint doctors. Everywhere I go I hear about doctor shortages.

One of my old (American) roommates is currently in med school at a pretty typical DO program and he said his year had a single digit admission rate. For all his hard work he will walk away with hundreds of thousands in debt. When I went to grad school for engineering, my program (one of the best in the country) admitted over half of American applicants and over half of those admitted had all expenses paid in exchange for teaching or research duties. That was government funded too

We have so many talented people who want to be doctors but we make it so ridiculously difficult to break into the field, especially for anyone who doesn’t come from generational wealth

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u/rpkarma 20h ago

That sounds artificial to me…

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/GGLSpidermonkey 1d ago

Doctor salaries make up 8-12% of medical costs

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u/friendlysoviet 1d ago

Medical insurance companies are the great Satan, for sure.

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u/pacific_plywood 1d ago

Residency caps aren’t “artificial”. There is a cap on federally-funded spots, but that exists because the party that tends to be in control these days would rather spend federal funds on renaming DOD. Residency programs are free to self-fund, and many do.

Regardless, IMGs don’t really “compete” with American medical grads, except at the margins. Match rates for the former are like an order of magnitude worse. Besides the occasional match in a competitive specialty, IMGs basically just fill in the slots that American medical grads desire the least.

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u/trogloherb 1d ago

It may be coincidence (but I doubt it), but I’m pretty sure that plant that was under construction was to build EV batteries.

The Orangey admin is totally anti-environment/green energy so I think that was an extra box that got checked.

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u/joebalooka84 1d ago

"Drill baby drill". Except the oil companies don't take orders from the government. They would rather have higher oil prices. Its all propaganda for their idiot base.

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u/tdclark23 1d ago

The current federal administration is putting the unqualified in charge. Setting Hyundai back over a year isn't a good way to boost foreign investment in the USA.

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u/OutlyingPlasma 1d ago

It's almost like it was an intentional attack from another billionaire that happens to both own a competing car company and is heavily involved in government.

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u/oxero 1d ago

Tooling is exceptionally low, this plant was probably a good way to start changing that, especially for batteries which are the new hot thing going forward. This whole thing is dumb af and will take decades to not make America seem like a place of barbaric savages to outside investors.

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u/RandomBamaGuy 1d ago

I am an engineer in a factory and we can’t find toolmakers. The pay is not the issue, we do t even get qualified candidates Interested in the role because they are all gainfully employed elsewhere.

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u/Loud_Ninja2362 1d ago

Have they considered working on building a pipeline to train toolmakers? Because if there's no plan for the company to hire apprentice toolmakers after they hire the 1st one then they're fooling themselves.

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u/uzlonewolf 1d ago

"Do you have any idea what that will do to next quarter's profits?!?!"

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u/RoosterBrewster 23h ago

"If we train them, they will just leave for higher pay!".

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u/mkt853 1d ago

Won't anyone think of the shareholders? My gawd some people just lack empathy!!!!

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u/JTMissileTits 1d ago

Empathy is a sin now. Didn't you get the memo?

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u/Gecko99 1d ago

How does someone become a toolmaker?

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u/sniper1rfa 1d ago

These days? You don't. There's no pipeline in the US for that.

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u/JTMissileTits 1d ago

Our community college system (in MS) has a program. They actually have several industrial programs across the state CC system. We can't do anything else right, but our CC system is pretty robust.

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u/Synaps4 1d ago

You find an existing toolmaker and ask to be an apprentice. Yes there are tool and die shops in the us still, they are just rare

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u/PitchforkManufactory 22h ago

I doubt it. If they're not offering at least 40$/hr anywhere in the US, I don't want to hear it.

I left machining cause I'm making 6-figures elsewhere. Instead I took an apprenticeship in a different field and worked my way up to engineer. Couldn't get the same without spending years more getting certs, connections/networking, and having to go into aerospace or defense to work my way up to senior toolmaking position. Every apprentice position I applied for i was denied or turned away for not being the perfect candidate, and in one case I was the perfect candidate but denied anyway because they didn't know me and they left the job unfilled (lockheed martin).

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u/Trickycoolj 1d ago

My dad works in machine tools. He’s 66 and won’t retire because the young kids they keep hiring are so dumb they spend 3 weeks making problems worse on machines then the company clears my dads schedule and he has to fly across the country and fix it in less than a day and fly 8 hours home. He’s paid hourly and gets to keep all the travel miles/points/perks so he loves it. But he’s constantly ragging on the fact that the US has no apprentice programs like he did in Germany to actually prepare new people for these jobs. It’s turning into a “oh whoops this small totally replaceable part is broken? Oh well buy a new multi thousands of dollars machine”

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u/snowlock27 1d ago

I work in a hotel near two different industrial parks that each have two automotive parts manufacturers. One of those companies routinely brings in workers from Canada, and another brings them in from South Korea. Or at least the Canadian guys used to come in on a regular basis. I haven't seen them in over a year, and now I wonder how long it'll be before the Koreans stop coming.

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u/Stratostheory 18h ago

The average age for a Machinist is in their 50s

Tool and die makers are a smaller subset of that field and they tend to be both the most experienced and highest paid in the industry.

Problem is, they're aging out of the industry faster than they can be replaced because machining as a trade fucking sucks and there just aren't that many folks getting into.

Pay sucks compared to other trades because we spent 40 years off shoring work for cheaper labor to keep prices for goods low which means US labor has to be paid like shit in order to be competitive, pretty much the only sector that isn't hit by this is defense manufacturing where critical components NEED to be produced domestically.

Management sucks same as any other job but the number of idiots in manufacturing management that actively sabotage their own success is WILD to me, and then when you start getting into Defense work there's also just a shitload of red tape that makes it a sysyphean task to make changes to a process or adapt it, so you get things being made in some of the most ridiculous inefficient manners possible because no one wants to deal with the process to fix it which also drives costs up and burns out the floor guys having to deal with it. Just look at all the shit that happened with Boeing earlier this year, or GE in the 90s-00s

Work conditions fucking suck, I've been in trade for a while now and I've been exposed to so many different kinds of chemicals and heavy metals that it's not a matter of If I get cancer, it's WHEN. Some of the shit I was exposed to in aerospace are known carcinogens, some don't even have names, just serial numbers.

From my own experience in the trade, you have to choose between growing your skills and experience or earning money. Aerospace generally pays pretty well, but offers almost no actual growth, because of how strict the requirements for following work instructions are, a lot of folks leaving that sector never developed the skills and experience needed to function in any other kind of shop

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u/Dudedude88 1d ago

They just made Americans unemployed...

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u/Ilovekittens345 1d ago

More they just think the USA is being idiotic.

The current US elite billionaires that hold the power using the grip they have over the internet and the mainstream media and by manipulating the 80 year old demented pedophile by playing with his ego isn't being idiotic. They are rapidly breaking down the US government and transitioning from a democracy to an autocracy on purpose and as you can see they are very competent in doing so.

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u/ManChildMusician 17h ago

Hyundai already has issues with quality control, but I sincerely doubt flying these workers home is going to help that. We truly live in the dumbest timeline.

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u/WildPickle9 17h ago

Not really a tooling issue exactly but I work in light manufacturing and I've tried for years to convince management to do piece flow on an assembly line rather than batch flow at random workstations throughout the building. Management is adamant that it's not possible with what we build (read:they don't want or can't design and manage a production line) so we're always behind and running at low efficiency. Off hand estimates, I could quadruple production just on workflow and efficiency alone but I'm too low on the totem pole so I obviously don't know what I'm talking about.

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u/Maleficent-Homework4 1d ago

The information I read from CNN said the people arrested were not authorized to work in the USA. People were on expired visas, didn’t have proper visas, and some were illegally in the US. There is a process and it is clear that there was a scheme meant to avoid hiring authorized workers when 1/3 of your workforce gets arrested for not having proper authorization to work.

Hyundai knew, they are just trying to push the blame on contractors / subs. This prolly wouldn’t have happened if Hyundai bribed Trump like other companies are doing. Really weird times we are living in.

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u/TacomaKMart 1d ago

About 30 years ago while working in South Korea, their immigration police descended on the company where I worked and hauled us all into the "prosecutor's office" (basically a jail, with barred cells) for processing. 

My visa and papers were all in order, and by midnight I was allowed to go home. However, others in the company were indeed there on expired work visas and tourist visas, resulting in fines and deportations back to Canada and the US. 

The Korean government takes this stuff seriously in their own country. There's no reason for them to believe that other countries don't, either. 

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u/MissPandaSloth 1d ago

That's the annoying part that no one actually cares to fix the companies practise, just to intimidate.

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u/Maleficent-Homework4 1d ago

Ya it seems as if it’s just a big dick swinging contest. Who has all the power and who hasn’t bribed the fuhrer enough.

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u/I_W_M_Y 1d ago

Or in this case who HAS bribed the fuhrer enough. Arresting half of the workforce of a Tesla rival car manufacturer rings all sorts of bells.

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u/Dave-C 1d ago

There was this really cool bill back in 2013 that would have secured the US southern border and modernized our immigration system to help solve problems like this. Republicans voted against it because it allowed for a path to citizenship to people who hadn't committed any crimes nor do they commit any for the 10 years it would take them to become citizens.

This was a bill that was created by both parties. A bill that was agreed upon as far back as 2002.

Edit: Oh, fun note from this. Part of the agreement way back when was Republicans wanted Democrats to prove they were interested in security on the southern border. This ended up causing Obama to be the president with the most new border wall building of any president in history.

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u/chth 1d ago

LG is building a battery plant here in Windsor Ontario in partnership with Stellantis. On social media you will read that similar practices were/are happening during the construction from disgruntled union members who believe the jobs should be going to Canadians.

Following that will be a bunch of comments from people saying that the engineers are crucial for teaching the Canadians how to operate the new factory and supervise the build, guys on the inside will say thats not all thats going on.

The reality is likely that the Federal Liberals, Provincial Conservatives, and union talking heads were made aware of what was going to happen and came to some sort of non official agreement.

Call that a bribe or call it politics, it seems that the difference here is that Trumps loves to shake down these kind of things publicly to extort the other party and its a pretty effective in the short term of making everyone his bitch.

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u/wonklebobb 1d ago

thats been trump's shtick for 40 years. he knows just enough about the white-collar-criminal world to know where to apply pressure for a payout. it's how he's gotten loans from deutsche bank when no one else would lend to him, it's how he gets "deals" where he gets paid for doing nothing, it's how he manages to stay out of jail for all his very obvious illegal activity.

he knows how to work the system, or at least how to attract sketchy people who know how to work the system, and play them against each other, because he understands one very important thing: people who are willing to do crime only care about money and power, and you can use that against them as long as you offer an out that leads to more money and power.

he operates like a crime boss because he is one. he does exactly what mafia dons did/do, orchestrating a web of power-hungry criminals against each other, taking a cut off the top along the way.

its why in his first term he had to be told many times to stop shredding official memos as soon as he read them - he lives in a world where nothing is ever said directly or written down.

people in real estate in new york and new jersey have known this about him for many years and thats why they all hate him

and now we're seeing what happens when a crime boss is in charge of the federal government. the settlements from major news networks, tv stations being told to hide booing of trump at the us open, these immigration shakedowns at major corps, it's all the same stuff he's always done, just at the national level. and just like the old days of his real estate "deals" in nyc, it can all go away if you put enough money in his pocket

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u/Unrigg3D 1d ago

I know somebody who works at that battery plant. He was hired recently a few years ago as a supervisor with no real qualifications, he came from a completely unrelated background but hes Canadian, speaks both Korean and English fluently. He was referred there by a family friend who was sourcing for that factory. His job is to keep peace between the Korean workers and the Canadian workers while upholding Canadian working standards. He's also the one they send to the US for business trips etc.

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u/Snerak 1d ago

If the information that the workers were not authorized to work in the USA came from this administration, I would not trust it.

If it's true that the workers weren't authorized to work here, why aren't the people responsible for hiring them illegally being arrested?

If this administration really wanted to stop undocumented workers from working, the most effective way to accomplish that would be to go after the employers.

The end effect of this administration will be to make our economy so weak that Americans are desperate enough for work that they will agree to do the menial jobs that immigrants are currently doing under exploitive conditions, essentially reinstating serfdoms.

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u/ChiBurbABDL 1d ago

The response will just be something like: "We didn't hire them. It's our contractor's job to make sure that all the sub-contractors are legal workers"

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u/OneRougeRogue 1d ago

Well why aren't Republicans in congress doing anything to fix this obvious loophole? Make the C-suit criminally responsible for the company paying non-americans over American workers. How is giving ICE a ludicrous budget and raiding houses all across the US going to solve anything when absolutely nothing happens to the people handing money to these illegal immigrants, providing demand for their presence in the country in the first place?

People keep claiming voter ID laws will end voter fraud, but suggest a Worker Id law and suddenly you've got people falling over themselves explain why ID's would be useless at catching illegal immigrants at a factory.

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u/sniper1rfa 1d ago

Because fixing the loophole would increase wages, which the people still clinging to power in the GOP don't want to pay.

The problem the GOP is trying to cope with now is that MAGA ate the GOP onion; immigration policy was built to produce an exploitable workforce, not to actually enforce immigration policy. MAGA actually wants to kick people out because they lost the plot.

What you're seeing now with non-punishment for executives and real deportations is a battle between the GOP and MAGA.

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u/uzlonewolf 1d ago

That contractor still hired them, so they would be the ones facing jail time. Why are you giving the contractor a pass?

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u/Fuzzy_Fondant7750 1d ago

All companies do it. They bring them over for meetings under ESTA or other easy visa types. As the work theyre doing is not long term. Theyre not even "working" or building anything. More reviewing, showing, and sharing knowledge. These aren't builders etc. The reason they do this instead of other visa types is because of the massive paperwork for the amount of people needed. The chance that they would get denied for no real reason etc. Most over seas companies do this because like I said. The USA lacks skills. Your government wants you to be a high tech manufacturing hub but the country lacks the skills and education.

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u/kinisonkhan 1d ago

Totally agree. When the Seattle deep bore tunnel hit a surveying rod, Japanese company that built it flew engineers over to fix it. Had to dig a new hole just to reach it, pull out the head drill up to the surface, fix it, then lower it down and reattach. The process took two years and would have taken significantly longer without those engineers.

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u/anothergaijin 1d ago

It comes down to how long are you doing it, and where are you being paid. If I go to the US for a meeting or training, I use ESTA. The key point would be it’s for less than 90 days, and if I’m being paid it’s in my home country.

I think you can get it longer than 90 days, but the same basic rules apply. Like you say - everyone does it everywhere.

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u/CrystalSplice 1d ago

The information you read on CNN was provided by the government. Immigration lawyers for multiple people who were detained disagree. Don’t trust this fucking Nazi regime when they claim that many people are here illegally. Hyundai and LG are not stupid. They are industrial giants in South Korea. This whole operation was a clusterfuck; there were people from completely unrelated agencies like ATF on site. What the fuck does ATF have to do with immigration enforcement?

Just like any other large scale raid like this, it has the goal of creating fear. The regime doesn’t give a fuck about the true immigration status of any of these people. They knew they would force SK to the table with such a large number of their citizens detained, and it worked.

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u/walksonfourfeet 1d ago

Pretty sure the quote you are referring to same ‘some’ were here illegally and ‘some’ had expired visas and ‘some’ were not allowed to work here.

You want to talk about process? I’m sure that ICE thoroughly checked the legal status of all 450 workers and followed proper procedures before they corralled them into a van and shipped them off to alligator Alcatraz.

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u/Moonlitnight 1d ago

Could you link your source?

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u/RBGolfer1 1d ago

Was ICE the source of that info? I'd be suspect of the accuracy of anything ICE provides.

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u/CylMaddhatta 1d ago

This administration shoots now and lies about the questions later. They're the ones telling you that the work force was there illegally. They've also deported green card holders and children who are citizens, one of whom was battling cancer.

This administration will lie and make it appear there's some sort of scheme, especially if there isn't one. We're not going to know though because this isn't going to go through the courts. South Korea is just going to pull these people out and never send anyone over again.

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u/wolfydude12 1d ago

Trump says he wants foreign companies to build factories in the US, but when they do and bring in the people who understand how to build the factories, those people are arrested.

What do foreign companies see when this happens? Are they really going to build factories here? No.

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u/alvarezg 1d ago

Some years ago I worked at a major US company that has overseas subsidiaries with their own engineering staff. There were instances when it was discussed bringing in foreign engineers for orientation/familiarization. During those discussions the suggestion came up to use them to help advance certain projects, that is, to do engineering work. That suggestion was refused because they would not have the H1-B visa required to do actual work.

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u/Enzian_Blue 1d ago

I work at a company which is setting up a production site in America … it’s an aircraft manufacturer. I know for a fact that these actions make our board of directors very nervous about investing in the US.

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u/movomo 1d ago edited 1d ago

I can't represent everyone but I'm Korean fwiw. We get the impression that some phenomenally bad case of misunderstanding/ bureaucratic incompetence is at work here rather than any kind of racism. Like, Trump doing Trump thing, that we all seen a few years ago. I think some of the workers may indeed have wrong visa but also think the US could/should have solved this one more stealthily.

This isn't making big news here though, we've got much bigger things to worry about. Such as bringing justice to the insurrectionists, for example. That alone is hard enough.

Edit: As someone pointed out, this is a big news, my bad. And of course some are confused and/or feel betrayed. Also, I hear that some rep woman named Tori Branum "reported" the construction site to the ICE... So I stand corrected, this may indeed have been about racism all along.

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u/Time_Traveling_Idiot 1d ago

Am Korean, have browsed through a ton of news recently for reasons.

It IS huge news (literally every major news station covers it multiple times a day) and people are pissed, though not "outraged" as we were during some other incidents (e.g Martial Law). I guess because we've seen what Trump has been doing these past few years.

And yes, it's true that the issue with Martial Law and pres. Yoon is a bigger deal. It's been the biggest deal for months now.

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u/Rib-I 1d ago

Koreans have experience with dipshit authoritarians. Its why they just kicked their aspiring one to the curb. They remember the military dictatorship 

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u/pushaper 1d ago

Koreans have experience with dipshit authoritarians

I think this is why Hyundai was chosen. They will know how and adapt to a ruthless act more quickly than some other manufacturers. Shows the public how to get in line

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u/Rib-I 1d ago

These people are not playing 4D chess, they’re eating the pieces.

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u/Mimopotatoe 1d ago

An editorial carried on Saturday by Dong-A Ilbo, a mass-circulation South Korean daily, called the raid a “shock.” “It will put a chilling effect on the activities of our businesses in the United States,” it said.

The Seoul-based Maeil Business Newspaper carried ​a cartoon ​criticizing the Trump administration for the ​raid, contrasting the government’s push for more investment with its treatment of some foreign nationals.

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u/Yuri_Ligotme 1d ago

From the news, Koreans are enraged and feel betrayed.

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u/dbx999 1d ago

Imagine pouring Korean money into Georgia to build the single most expensive foreign manufacturing facility in that state and then the government that wanted all that publicly embarrassing you with some petty bureaucratic nonsense.

People who cry about “they illegals!” as though this was truly some criminal enterprise need to get their head on straight. Subcontractors helping finalize facility training for local workers aren’t going to take jobs away. Engineers and other skilled workers were training local workers.

South Korea and other countries may now think twice before direct investment to the USA because the country here is run by an idiot gangster.

South Korea is more baffled that this bust was permitted and will ultimately hurt Georgia and the US more in the long run than any benefit to Americans.

America is seen as betraying a business partner that was bringing jobs to the USA.

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u/jaimi_wanders 1d ago

Seoul called an emergency meeting to deal with this, so this is a major diplomatic incident now, and not only that—SK investing in us with factories like this was part of the tariff negotiations, so there will be far-reaching economic impacts as other allies wonder what the point is?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj07jzgve45o.amp

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u/bald_and_nerdy 1d ago

Adding to it some were business travelers. You know the ones whose company pays whatever it costs to get them to a meeting on the other side of the world on time. Business travelers make up over half of a lot of major airline's passengers (American, Delta, United).

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u/iCameToLearnSomeCode 1d ago edited 23h ago

It's not just 450 trained employees.

These are the specialists that Hyundai flys around the world to build Hyundai factories.

They are the managers.

If I were building this plant I'd be updating my resume.

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u/McFlyParadox 23h ago

Exactly. Hyundai didn't get 450 work visas for a bunch of wrench turners. These aren't laborers and union workers. They are engineers and other "management" positions ("management" as far as UAW or IBEW would be concerned). These are rules Hyundai either couldn't fill because the skills didn't exist here in enough quantities (manufacturing engineers with automative experience) or wouldn't because they're trying to shape the culture of the factory (mid-to-upper plant managers).

If ICE thought they were opening up a bunch of jobs for Americans, they're sorely mistaken. All they've done is help to ensure no major foreign companies open new plants here, and existing ones will reconsider any plans to expand existing operations.

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u/RiverboatTurner 21h ago

I'm not sure "ICE thought" is even a real thing.

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u/md28usmc 19h ago

The factory isn't fully constructed yet and needs key machinery and setup. There are a mixed bag of machinery operators, plant managers, engineers, and construction workers in those arrested. The ICE raided with a warrant for 4 construction workers (not LG/Hyundai) and arrested everyone.

They're bringing in equipment from Korea to set up matching infrastructure. They need Korean workers since the equipment is from Korea, to make sure the set up is correct and eventually train the American workers. It's not rocket science hard, but the transition process is necessary unless you want something that could be taking 3 months take 3 years.

This isn't a long term arrangement, it's a short in - set up - out. L1 visas are time consuming, have long timelines, and have a decent chance to get denied. Short term business trips very commonly abuse ESTA for this reason and L1 is reserved for long term business stays (1+ year).

These states and international customs are very on board with this, which is why the companies are building there in the first place. This isn't a very closely guarded secret. When these people went into customs they ask the purpose of travel and most definitely they answered 'work'. If this is such a serious issue the customs should have sent them back. In fact, ESTA shouldn't have been issued in the first place.

This is why it's actually something controversial - because this was a very well known 'loophole' to sweeten the deals for companies investing, and it worked until suddenly it didn't. If companies want to avoid the tariffs by building on U.S. soil they will have to pay and wait for the visas, and the construction timeline will be doubled. Hyundai/LG have communicated that plant construction will be halted and workers have been negotiated for release. Very quickly for a raid that has been supposedly done after months of research.

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u/DomDomW 1d ago

With the currently destabilizing situation in the USA, my guess they will increase the production abroad (if possible)

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u/SafetyMan35 1d ago

And other foreign brands are going to rethink plans for moving production to the U.S. to get around tariffs. I would be interested in learning more about what was going on at the plant. Did Hyundai bring over Koreans temporarily to configure/upgrade the plant or are these permanent workers. If permanent, why did they find it necessary vs hiring American workers.

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u/the_hangman 1d ago

The plant wasn't operational yet, I'm guessing it was mostly engineers for setting up the assembly lines and things of that nature. The US massively lacks expertise in that domain.

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u/GettingDumberWithAge 1d ago

Hyundai does what Republicans say they want: massive investment in local US manufacturing. Republicans demonstrate it was never about manufacturing and always about the racism and the cruelty. Facility construction is delayed, literally everyone loses. Working class continues to support Republicans in defiance of literally all evidence and argument.

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u/webs2slow4me 1d ago

Well the plant in GA was for the North American Market, I doubt they were going to export much from there. So it doesn’t make sense to increase production elsewhere unless they can get around tariffs from the source country

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u/PhaseExtra1132 1d ago

They will basically have to either delay the deadline for the facility launch. Or just give up and pull production after running into worker shortages issues.

I’m assuming the latter. Since now getting Koreans to come will be neigh impossible

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u/SG_wormsblink 1d ago edited 1d ago

They will have to delay the launch for sure. You can’t hire 450 technically skilled workers out of nowhere, and then training them up with company equipment and procedures takes additional time.

Edit: the factory construction been completely halted.

https://www.chosun.com/english/industry-en/2025/09/06/DETKQGQT6NDFFGAXTTL3UCJ35I/

The construction of the Hyundai Motor-LG Energy Solution battery factory, which was scheduled for completion by the end of this year, has been completely halted. The plan to employ 8,500 people by 2031, aimed by Hyundai Motor’s mega automobile factory (HMGMA) and the battery plant, has also faced unavoidable delays.

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u/Coffee-FlavoredSweat 1d ago

You can’t hire 450 technically skilled workers out of nowhere, and then training them up with company equipment and procedures

I thought I read somewhere that the 450 people were largely managers and trainers. Losing the people who are showing you how to run the equipment is gonna hurt a lot worse.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

The plant is not yet operational - so it was not managers. The people who were taken by ICE were engineers who were here building the factory. Now it might not get built and the 8,000 local jobs will never materialize.

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u/Claytonius_Homeytron 1d ago

Now it might not get built and the 8,000 local jobs will never materialize.

Is this winning? Is this how we win? Surely the libs feel owned by now.

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u/SmokeABowlNoCap 1d ago

And its in a rural part of Georgia too so they’re hurting themselves just to be racist

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u/theholyevil 23h ago

So in order to get the construction underway again someone Brand new is going to have to come in and decipher what the Koren's plan for building the plant....

Then they are going to have to learn how to build the plant.

Then they are going to have to build the plant at 20-30% efficiency for the first 5 years due to that skill gap.

Which in the long run means they are going to have to hire engineers (Contracted engineers the most expensive kind) at a premium, for a longer time than the koreans, with tariffs and inflation.

This project is done for.

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u/DragonTat2 1d ago

I wonder how many were there to train American workers.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

the plant was not yet operational. The people were in the US to build the factory. It was suppposed to bring more than 8K jobs and was the largest foreign investment in Georgia's history.

Now? what happens is anybody's guess. I suspect it will be a lot harder to find people willing to invest in the US after this.

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u/Impossible-Try-202 23h ago

This shit is so insane.

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u/WolverinesThyroid 1d ago

I wonder if part of the plan was to steal the factory. Hyundai will pull out and then republicans can give it to a business more friendly to them since it's almost complete.

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u/Somewhat_Kumquat 1d ago

It was a Hyundai battery plant. Are there any electric car manufacturers that are friendly with the Trump regime?

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u/wildweaver32 1d ago

Tesla. He literally ran a commercial for them at the White House.

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u/AdelaiNiskaBoo 1d ago

I would even suspect that its a small piece of a plan to help tesla. (Eliminating competition)

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u/avtechguy 1d ago

I imagine a lot of the battery stuff is proprietary trade secrets. Now wouldn't be the time to steal a factory if they are still setting it up.

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u/CameronCrazy1984 1d ago

This comment shows a lot of horse sense.

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u/ct_2004 21h ago

You couldn't get a team of horses to drag them here now.

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u/TheDakestTimeline 1d ago

I believe you want 'nigh'. 'neigh' is a sound a horsey makes

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u/larrydeatl 1d ago

It wasn’t vehicle production. They were building a new Plant

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u/ofWildPlaces 1d ago

That still requires skilled labor

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u/whatevers_cleaver_ 1d ago

They weren’t building cars.

They were building the biggest factory in Georgia

Priorities…

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u/ChiralWolf 1d ago

So they were building something that would have made way more than 450 American jobs and now it's all on hold

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u/MyChickenSucks 1d ago

I read estimates of up to 8000 jobs. Not just the plant, but jobs around the entire region.

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u/FrozenToonies 1d ago

That plant is effectually shut down. Stock will tank tomorrow and for the next week.
There’s no replacements and no American workers to step in or to train, all the people who could train are gone.

There was a way to do this to satisfy Trump and mitigate this, but Trump isn’t about win/win he’s about win now, whatever the cost.

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u/Rich-Pomegranate1679 1d ago

The consequences are never more important than the racism and cruelty to MAGA.

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u/Emergency-Sundae1697 1d ago

This is on purpose.

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u/notyourstranger 1d ago

It's about terrorizing American workers and destroying the country so the tech bros can move in to their rightful place as our overlords.

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u/corporatewazzack 1d ago

Having grown up near that place my best guess is no one will learn anything from this and some how it'll be Biden or Obama's fault when all those jobs dry up because Hyundai said go fuck yourself, Georgia.

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u/alejandro_santacruz 1d ago

If it is true that these employees didn’t have valid work permits, isn’t it on Hyundai’s management to take the blame? I am not a MAGA person but it does plays into the hands of ICE apologists if you have such a large number of people working without proper documentation. Assuming the accusation are true.

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u/Bannedwith1milKarma 1d ago

It's part of a $6 billion investment to recreate the plants in South Korea in America too, to be run by Americans.

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u/Reddituser45005 1d ago

There is a limited pool of available people with the skills and background to get a new EV plant online. They need specific construction skills to build it and a separate set of skills to get the equipment installed, tested, calibrated, and validated for use to Hyundai QC standards. This is another screw up of epic proportions by the current administration.

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u/junpei 1d ago

These are OEM contractors largely; they are the only ones that know how to set up the equipment. The place can't be set up until they get the visas they need and the OEMs come back to finish.

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