Maybe it’s the devil went down to Georgia? Or the day the lights went out in Dixie? I’m sure there’s a bunch of other southern cliches we could trot out but the ICE bust at the Korean battery plant in rural Georgia last week might rank up there with the dumbest, most illogical and counterproductive moments of the Trump onslaught of America…and that’s saying something.
You know the basic story: federal stormtroopers swarmed into a factory under construction just outside of Savannah and arrested some 400 Korean nationals, accusing them of being here and working here illegally. They seem to have been held in custody since although negotiations are ongoing to release them and as you read this, they may already be on their way back to Korea.
Does this make any sense? These aren’t terrorists or likely people taking jobs away from legal Americans. Some of them might in fact be here legally under working permits, it’s not clear right now.
These people were working at a plant being built by a Korean company that will make batteries for electric vehicles, one of a number of Korean corporations that is investing billions of dollars in manufacturing facilities in this country…which is something that the president says he wants. Yet the signal this sends out is that unless you do this strictly the way he wants, you are in danger. Is this really the signal America wants to send out to foreign investors?
The specific facts of this situation — you’ll notice I’m not naming names here — are irrelevant to the bigger picture. If the current administration wants foreign companies to invest in this country and build factories and ultimately hire Americans to work in them, this is a terrible way to do it.
There are so many things wrong with this action, it’s hard to list them all here. Suffice it to say, this has been a sad chapter — another sad chapter — in the economic policies and strategies of the current president’s administration.
This time it was a battery plant in Georgia. Next time it could be yours.
WarrensReport 