SEOUL, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- On the morning when more than 300 Korean workers detained in the United States were preparing to return to Seoul, one cartoon in a Korean newspaper drew particular attention.
Titled "After the Bus Has Left," it portrayed President Donald Trump gazing at a bus carrying the detained Korean specialists, muttering wistfully, "Why not just stay? You'll be back soon, won't you, ally?" At his feet, the handcuffs once placed on the workers lay scattered on the ground.
If the cartoon was metaphor, Trump's own words a few days later on Truth Social were strikingly direct. His message distilled into two points: He does not want to discourage foreign corporate investment and he welcomes foreign skilled labor.
He made no explicit reference to the recent detentions at the Hyundai-LG Energy Solution joint battery plant in Georgia, but the timing made the connection clear. For a president who has long pushed aggressive crackdowns on illegal immigration, his post revealed an important distinction: He would not allow "MAGA" hardliners to undermine America's industrial revival by treating essential specialists as deportable aliens.
Trump put the matter bluntly. "There are countless products -- chips, semiconductors, computers, ships, trains -- that we need to learn to make again, or once did well but no longer do," he wrote.
