Expert: After ICE Raid, Korean Investors Seek Reassurance, Vocal Support from State Leaders

It’s one thing to speak of a close alliance and long-term partnership; it’s another to prove it with actions when times get tough. 

As the fallout continues from the ICE raid on Hyundai’s plant near Savannah, Georgia leaders should be vocal in their support of Korean investors to restore trust and keep historic investments on track, a top expert on U.S.-Korea trade said in Atlanta Thursday. 

“Georgia officials who want these continued high-quality investments need to be speaking out in favor of them. It shouldn’t be a partisan issue — we all want better jobs in Georgia,” said Tami Overby, who led the U.S.-Korea Business Coalition supporting the KORUS free-trade agreement and later became president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea. 

At a World Affairs Council of Atlanta luncheon, she noted that while Korean executives haven’t been saying much out loud, images of Korean engineers shackled and led off to a detention center for a week were jarring to the business community. 

One intimation from a Korean contact she shared with The New York Times became emblematic of the moment: “It’s like they want our money, but they don’t want us,” Ms. Overby was told. 

“I’ve been shocked at how many people are saying things to me,” she told Global Atlanta at the event, noting that most don’t want their names or companies used. “They’re taking it very personally.” 

Regardless of how executives feel, the Hyundai plant at the center of the raid has expressed ongoing commitment to Georgia despite the snafu. 

While it has paused construction on the raided joint venture battery plant for at least two months, the company said Friday it would direct $2.7 billion more to overall Metaplant site and hire 3,000 more Georgians as part of a massive global expansion and a $26 billion U.S. investment plan beefed up to the tune of $5 billion in August. 

At the groundbreaking on another potentially transformative Georgia investment — the Rivian plant in Social Circle, Ga. — Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters he has had conversations with both foreign investors and Washington policy makers. He doesn’t believe Georgia will be affected in the long term. 

Still, many have said the raids have cast a pall over foreign investment in the United States, especially from South Korea, whose companies have reportedly paused more than 20 major projects around the U.S. 

A staunch ally, Korean companies piled into the U.S. after the KORUS free-trade agreement enacted in 2009. With unilateral tariffs, the U.S. is violating that painstakingly crafted agreement, which was already renegotiated during President Donald Trump’s first term, said Ms. Overby, now a partner at DGA Group in Washington. 

Korean negotiators are now in D.C. to hammer out the finer points of the side deal that President Lee Jae-myung agreed to during a Washington visit in August. Onerous U.S. demands on how to steer promised Korea’s investments in shipbuilding and other sectors have become a sticking point. 

Ms. Overby said the president told Time magazine: “‘If I agree to those demands as they are, I’ll be impeached.’ And I think he’s right,” she said, adding: “I think the U.S. has to be a little more agreeable.

Troy Stangarone, former deputy director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the Wilson Center, said Korea sees the investment relationship as key to its broader alliance with the U.S.

While Korea’s economy is tightly integrated with China’s, the U.S. role as a security guarantor, with 27,500 troops on the peninsula, has been vital to unleashing the country’s economic dynamism over the past half-century. 

Now, Korea is bringing that to bear for the U.S., responding to U.S. legislation such as the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

The goal has been to restore resiliency in the sectors where it ceded manufacturing to Asia, such as semiconductors. Mr. Stangarone noted that while Samsung is building chips in Texas, they’re all shipped back to Korea for a finishing process called packaging. Now, that part of the supply chain is coming to the U.S. through SK Hynix, also in Texas, in companies like Absolics, a glass substrate manufacturer with a major project in Georgia.  

“As we compete with China, it’s going to be important to have the ability, if there’s a crisis, to have manufacturing in the United States to make sure that we’re able to supply ourselves,” Mr. Stangarone said. “Korea is playing an extremely important role in this.” 

He also mentioned solar panels, where Korean firm Hanhwa Qcells is investing an additional $2.5 billion at it already-massive complex in northwest Georgia. 

“They haven’t finished the process yet, but they’re trying to take and create the only U.S.-centric supply chain for producing solar panels in the United States,” Mr. Stangarone said in the conversation, moderated by World Affairs Council President Rickey Bevington at the Buckhead Club.

A New Way Forward on Visas? 

That’s why it’s important to get over this “little blip, this horrific ICE raid,” which not only has Koreans concerned but is also spilling over to other Asian countries undertaking big U.S. investments, like Singapore, Japan and Taiwan, whose crown jewel, TSMC, is building a $165 billion chip foundry complex in Arizona. 

“They’re worried that their citizens are going to be treated like criminals, so I think we have to get past this, and we will,” Ms. Overby said. “President Trump is aware of the problem. I think the administration is moving quickly, but bottom line right now: We have a very strong economic relationship, and the opportunities going forward are even better.”

Kim Dae-hwan, Korea’s deputy consul general in Atlanta, held out hope that this “regrettable incident” would lead to reforms to the visa process to accommodate the needs of Korean investors. 

“We hope this unfortunate event eventually turns out to be a blessing in disguise.”

Korean deputy consul general Kim dae-hwaN

“We hope this unfortunate event eventually turns out to be a blessing in disguise, leading to concrete improvements in the visa system that will better ensure the stable state of skilled personnel supporting Korean investment in the United States,” Mr. Kim said during opening remarks, noting that Mr. Trump and Mr. Lee, the Korean president, have instructed their administrations to look into reforms. 

 It’s a longstanding problem that always cropped up during her time at the Amcham in Korea, Ms. Overby said. The U.S. has a cap of 85,000 H-1B visas for skilled professionals, and each year, they run out in minutes. The problem has to be addressed by Congress.

“(Commerce Secretary) Howard Lutnick tells our Korean leaders, ‘Y’all need to do this legally, and you need to call me if you have a problem,’” Ms. Overby said. “I would put them on speed dial and call them every day and say, ‘What are you doing about fixing the visa problem?’” 

Ms. Overby has a history promoting deeper access. As head of the AmCham, she was allowed to vet applications before they went to U.S. consular officials, helping pave the way for investors to get cleared at the embassy. She also advocated for Korea’s inclusion in the Visa Waiver Program, which ironically may have led to some of the confusion at the Hyundai plant.

Processed correctly, an exemption is available that allows engineers to come into the U.S. under visa-waiver to set up equipment purchased overseas. Some may have been traveling on this status when they were swept up in the raid, according to local immigration attorneys. 

Either way, Ms. Overby said the fallacy is that Korean technicians are here to replace Americans; rather, they’re here to help realize the “dream” of employing thousands of Georgians. 

“They are not stealing your jobs. I don’t know if you’ve priced an airline ticket from Incheon to Atlanta, but a roundtrip ticket’s about $1,800 to two-grand. They’re not sending people over here to pour concrete.”

She saw an analogy in Korea in the 1980s and ‘90s, when IBM sent their engineers to set up plants in Korea, then turned them over to Korean management as soon as was feasible. 

Part of the solution for the U.S., in addition to fixing the immigration system, will be growing the American appetite for technical fields, Mr. Stangarone added. 

“A lot of manufacturing is going to be, actually, computer skills — the people who actually fix the robots that are taking and doing things. It’s not actually humans assembling all these things anymore. So I think changing the perspective of what manufacturing is and why it matters, just societally, is going to be important.” 

YKK Americas President Jim Reed, who chairs the World Affairs Council of Atlanta board of directors, said such discussions are vital to keeping the business community informed. 

“As international affairs gets more and more complex and fraught, I am a firm believer that business leaders have to play an important role in building that bridge.”